The Books of Knots Complete Trilogy

05/10/2011
. (Speak Easy) The Books of Knots, featuring members of Skeleton Key, Pere Ubu and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, return for the final chapter in their "By Sea, By Land, By Air" trilogy with Garden of Fainting Stars (June 14, Ipecac Recordings).

The ten-track album was recorded in 2010 with core band members: Joel Hamilton (producer/engineer BlakRoc, Sparklehorse), Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, Bob Mould). An impressive array of guest musicians took part including Blixa Bargeld ("Drosophila Melanogaster"), Mike Watt ("Yeager's Approach"), Mike Patton ("Planemo") and Patton's former Mr. Bungle cohort/current Secret Chiefs 3 ringleader Trey Spruance ("Obituary For The Future").

Where the previous release, Traineater, focused on the American rust belt and The Book of Knots' self-titled debut explored all things nautical, Garden of Fainting Stars tackles the final frontier: space. In the band's own words: "The imagined utopias that await doomed travelers and early astronauts at the other end of their fantastical journeys inevitably give way to the grim realization which mankind has faced again and again: At every hopeful turn, commonplace realities await us. A vast and empty universe stretching far beyond infinity, capable of containing the countless imaginary creatures, civilizations and otherwise terrestrial impossibilities that inhabit our dreams, dies in the fluorescent lighting of the laundry soap aisle at Walmart. Once again, we cast a wormless, rusty hook into the lifeless seas of the music industry, expecting to reap only sorrow."

Garden of Fainting Stars track listing (guest musicians noted below):

1. Microgravity
2. Drosophila Melanogaster (Blixa Bargeld - Einsturzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)
3. Moondust Must (Nils Frykdahl - Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Dawn McCarthy - Faun Fables)
4. Lissajous Orbit (Aaron Lazar � The Giraffes)
5. Garden of Fainting Stars (Elyas Khan � Nervous Cabaret)
6. All This Nothing
7. Yeager's Approach (Mike Watt)
8. Planemo (Mike Patton)
9. Nebula Rasa
10. Obituary For The Future (Trey Spruance)

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