180 gram LP in gatefold sleeve
The psyche-melodic guitar swirls of Oska Wald and the alluring back-up vocals of MTN GRL elevate his wry croon, not quite country but not quite contrary. Something like if Lee Hazlewood and John Prine both wanted to buy the same vintage lamp…
Big Daddy Mugglestone is back, with his first full-length solo release in over 2 decades! Rumi Sounds is proud to present this collection of songs about Life, Love, and God that really embody the idea of Americana Gothic. The songs are dark but not bleak, giving a glimpse of forgiveness…even the 12-minute long murder ballad for which the album is named is still a love song.
With a mixed band of Denver and Berlin-based friends, Mugglestone steps out of the shadowy depths to create a record you and yr auntie could listen to while doing the dishes or lounging on the sofa on a rainy day.
Liner Notes (by Al Burian)
Who is Big Daddy Mugglestone and why is he following me?
That word is invoked in its old-fashioned sinister sense, the rustling of a shadowy lurker in the shrubs outside the apartment complex, the disembodied hiss of three hundred unanswered phone calls and nothing but heavy breathing on the voicemail. Hello? Who is this? Why me?
Big Daddy Mugglestone, born in the free and unconquered lands between German and Japanese occupied America in Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle; a child prodigy at drumming on the table in his high school cafeteria, with a PhD in arson and serial killing already in elementary school, plus the sweetest crooning alto you’ve ever heard if you’re lucky enough to catch him in a good mood and singing Patsy Cline. A gnostic mystic with a heart of gold, he made his name as a DJ who could spin records with one arm tied behind his back, this altruistic antic designed to prove to us all that what we perceive as consensus reality is merely an illusion created by the great deceiver, the angel of light, the blind idiot god. A prolific performer, Mugglestone travelled the world playing music all through the early years of the 21st century, and by an improbable set of circumstances finally landed in Berlin, where he is currently trapped forever and mostly hangs out with Italians.
The Mugglestone I know, with the twinkling eyes and cut-throat humor, is hidden on this record. There are some sad songs here, raw and honest in their emotion. That might make the listener uncomfortable: we want to laugh and be entertained. We want the reptilian guffaws that chortle in our throats when we watch videos of a squirrel falling out of a tree or a bird hitting a window pane. We want to point fingers; We don’t want a sincere conversation leading to enlightenment. Who is Big Daddy Mugglestone, and who is following who? In our debased contemporary times, that question might even have the ring of normalcy, imply a positive state of affairs; “following” being a kind of shorthand code for virtualized intimacy and a promise of potential interest; at the very least it might invoke smiley faces and upward thumb icons exchanged. We sit alone in our cages, terrified to expose the raw sucked thumb of our scalded, third-degree-burned inner child. That’s why people tremble when Big Daddy Mugglestone saunters in, singing his crib-death lullabies, wearing his heart on his sleeve where everyone can see it gushing, bleeding all over the disaffected zeitgeist. Because that’s not cool. It’s real.
RumiSounds 