Where do you go after a 50-year career in music and as many albums? I suppose INFINITY is the answer and thus the title of my 52nd (I think) album, which will be released as a limited edition CD on March 7, just in time for my tour of France/Belgium/Spain, and Italy (via Cruise ship). It’s my first studio album of original songs since Wonder (2023) and in this very recent family of songs, I tried to peer into the future while being grounded in the icons of my youth all wrapped in a diverse genre-defying musicality. Hopefully, it’s a personal collection that will appeal to the universal musical collective consciousness. That’s been my modus operandi since my debut album, Aquashow (1973).
INFINITY was produced, arranged, and mixed by Gaspard Murphy, and all songs (except “Count My Blessings,” co-written by Olivier Durand) were written by me in a surprising flurry of creative activity last year. The album was recorded nearby at Murmure studio in Paris with contributions by my musical partner for 29 years, virtuoso guitarist Olivier Durand, violinist Melissa Cox, and percussionist Alan Fatras with double-bassist Gerard McFadden on one track. Keyboards, electric bass, drum programming, and additional instrumentation were all handled by Gaspard Murphy and myself.
I’m convinced that inspiration comes in unpredictable waves, and there’s no telling when new songs, complete with melodies, rhythm, and lyric fragments, will start crashing onto the shore of my unconsciousness. But the trick is to just get on board when they do and don’t let them loose until done. Last year, I was in the grip of just such a mania and made a decision to write a song a day, which proved impossible, but fortunately, that leveled out to about a song a month, which was well within the capacity of my creative output. In some fashion, INFINITY takes on the form of a novel with songs replacing chapters and characters both past, present, and future, dancing hand in hand with a „ghostly rhythm partner…“