Following on from a successful digital release earlier in
the year, travelling songwriter Mark Mulholland’s second album The Cactus
And The Dragon receives a full physical release on Monday 6 February. The
follow-up to his 2008 debut The Devil On Stairs, this is Mark’s first
album for Berlin-based Cannery Row Records.
In keeping with
Mark’s wandering spirit, the album has had a geographically challenging
gestation. The initial tracks were recorded in a makeshift studio in Berlin by
Australian engineer Dugald Jayes with the rest of the recordings taking place
in studios, kitchens and sitting rooms in Berlin, Paris, Antwerp and San
Francisco, featuring guest appearances from a wide range of Mark's musical
collaborators. Finally, Mark brought the disparate elements of the recording to
Monobeat Studio in Berlin, where they were mixed and mastered by Stewart Hill.
The songs
cover a wide variety of styles, from jangling pop-rock on ‘Something New’,
through the delicate and intricate folk of
‘Another Falling Star’ and ‘Middle Lane Driver’s boisterous country, to
the full-on psychedelic rock of the title track. Despite the stylistic
diversity, and the varied instrumentation, line-ups and recording environments,
the album works as a cohesive whole, reflecting the multiple facets of
Mulholland's accomplished songwriting.
Born in Glasgow, Mark has been travelling and playing
music for more than two decades, both solo and with a number of different
bands. His main band project in recent years has been Two Dollar Bash, an
acoustic folk/country/blues group who have just finished their fourth album and
have been touring extensively for the past nine years. Pursuing a solo career
in parallel with the various bands he is involved in, Mark is also in demand as
a session musician, having made recordings over the years with Nikki Sudden,
Captain Sensible and Phil Shoenfelt among others. After years of splitting his time
between Berlin, Paris and other European cities, Mark is now based in Haiti,
where he is working with young local bands in a cultural centre in
Port-au-Prince.
The latest Two Dollar Bash album New Adventures will
be released in the UK in April followed by a joint project with former deUs
guitarist Craig Ward.
…a fine collection of bittersweet songs. An inventive,
melodic guitarist with a warm and expressive singing voice; flashes of Jansch,
Perrett, and Dylan; conjuring long languid afternoons and melancholy drawn-out
nights in distant cities. **** R2
…a great late-night reflective collection, incandescently
candlelit and replete with swirling psych tinges of the early Roy Harper,
Robert Wyatt and the desultory poetry of Townes Van Zandt. ****
Maverick
