Gare du Nord press release:
A cycle of songs about dead dogs. Dealing with loss, grief and loneliness, they recount the tales of lost dogs both real, metaphoric and mythic, and use our relationship with and treatment of dogs as a measure of our humanity.
Collaborating as The Unattached on this record are Joad R Wren, sister Gwenifer Raymond, uncle Neil White, and daughter Celia, along with friends Darren Hayman, Ian Button, John McGrath and Holly Rogers.
Joad notes: “The album was written and recorded during the height of the pandemic. I’ve no idea why it’s taken so long to release it. I do know that it’s a great pleasure to work – even at a distance – with such talented musicians, with many amazing albums in their back catalogues.”
The final song was a surprise – especially to Joad – as Neil wrote it years ago about a forgotten dog, and it fitted beautifully as a coda here.
The songs are at once lush, sensitive, bleak and unflinching – there’s a similar feeling to something like Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’, or the darker moments of Roy Harper. The LP comes in a numbered, hand-printed linocut sleeve with a 20 page booklet of lyrics and art.
The sleeve is a bit special. The oil-based ink used on this hand-printed sleeve may feel sticky to touch, and can potentially transfer to other surfaces. Please handle and store this record carefully.
It’s an edition of 100, and because of the hand-printing process each cover is imperfectly unique and uniquely imperfect (and hand numbered).
Available in all good record stores, and on bandcamp: https://theunattached.bandcamp.com/album/requiem-for-dead-dogs
Joad R Wren 