Announcing the release (4/5/2011) of Michael Fracasso’s seventh album, Saint Monday. The recording marks a more experimental path for Fracasso, who's been a nationally acclaimed singer-songwriter for two decades.  Rather than take a more conventional approach to his newest material, Fracasso called in his friend, novelist Jim Lewis, to produce and play on the record -- Lewis’ first -- and co-write a few of the songs.  “It’s like being called down from the stands to coach the Yankees,” say Lewis.  For Lewis -- whose most recent novel, The King is Dead (Knopf), was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year -- it was a chance to work with some of his favorite musicians.


Guest appearances feature Patty Griffin, who lends her incomparable voice (and her lesser-known whistling skills) to a rocking Everly style duet called “Ada, OK”  and Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith from the legendary Gourds, as well as a crack rhythm section composed of Fracasso’s long time collaborators George Reiff and Mark Patterson on bass and drums.

The opening track, “While the Night is Young”, begins with Fracasso’s distinctive voice and builds into a raw, howling electric anthem.  It’s followed by a pop song, “Eloise”, that runs straight and swift as an arrow, and “Little Lover”, which offers a version of country rock that’s part Rolling Stones and part Bakersfield.  “Elizabeth Lee”, a dark tale of betrayal and murder, begins with a lone acoustic guitar and builds into the savage noise of a steel-mill in full production, while the title song, “Saint Monday”, takes an 18th Century expression that meant ‘too hungover to go to work’, and expands it into a shimmering portrait of a man on the edge, seeking a redemption that lies just out of reach. The album also includes “Working Class Hero”, the John Lennon classic, transformed by a dub-reggae rhythm and electric guitars as brutal as the lyrics (an edited, radio-friendly version is also available). Rounding out the recording is the gorgeous pop song “Broken Souvenirs” that tells an epic story of love and loss in two minutes, “Gypsy Moth”, a mystical ballad tinged with highlight rhythms, and lastly, “Another Million” a fragile prayer of a song, recorded in the darkest hours of the night.