MARC ALMOND - Feasting With Panthers (Expanded Edition) - 2LP - Vinyl [APR 25]

2LP - Black Vinyl (Expanded Edition). A stellar collaboration between composer Michael Cashmore (Current 93) and vocalist Marc Almond of Soft Cell fame.

Two complementary creative sensibilities in intimate interlock; supreme compositional and vocal talents fusing to make uniquely dramatic musical and vocal interpretations of searing beauty and insight. Specifically, this suite of songs feature the heightened lyricism of a stunning array of cult poets, both contemporary and of yesteryear.

‘Feasting With Panthers’ is a stellar collaboration between composer Michael Cashmore (Current 93) and vocalist Marc Almond of Soft Cell fame, in the nearest thematic echo and nod, in the latter's vast back catalogue, to the darker gothic influences of his celebrated Marc And The Mambas period and his acclaimed ‘L’Absinthe’ and ‘Jacques’ twisted chanson solo albums.

This album’s defining aesthetic is the setting of outsider poems to music. Poems by Count Eric Stenbock plus unique lyrical translations - by celebrated poet Jeremy Reed - of works by Jean Genet, Jean Cocteau, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, as well as Reed's own poetry. The emphasis throughout is on 'decadent' poems of thwarted love, ill-fated romance, self-destruction and death: many poems are woven with homo-eroticism, laced with opium dreamstates and all are accompanied by Michael Cashmore's haunting and melancholic music that lends the verses a deft yearning for beauty and a bittersweet, melancholic longing for lost innocence and youth.

Originally released in 2011 and long since deleted, ‘Feasting With Panthers’ is now restored to back catalogue availability in a 2xCD mini-album sleeve style capacity wallet complete with a fold-out poster lyrics sheet and featuring four bonus tracks. The album was recorded over several years by the artists sending music files back and forth by e-mail and post; the artists never once recording together in the studio. Berlin based Michael Cashmore worked at home composing the music, playing all of the instruments and adding Marc's vocals from files recorded in London. The resulting album is a glorious union of sensual talents, both in voice and music, complementing the intriguing and evocative poetic texts.

The project began after Current 93's David Tibet gave Marc a book of poems by the Baltic German poet Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock. Marc was instantly attracted to the dark eroticism and the melancholic yearning of the verse and, so, contacted Michael Cashmore, whom he had previously worked with on Current 93's reading of ‘Idumea’. He felt Michael would have the right understanding of the verse with his intricate, beautiful musical compositions. From this, the project developed to include many of Marc's favourite poems by some of his favourite 'outsider' poets with common thematic ground.

Tracklist: 

Side A                                                
A1 - The Thief And The Night
A2 - Sonnet XI
A3 - Boy Caesar
A4 - The Lunatic Lover 

Side B
B1 - Crime Of Love   
B2 - Sleeper In The Valley
B3 - Song Of The Unwept Tear
B4 - Patron Saint Of Lipstick
B5 - Gabriel   

Side C
C1 - El Desdichado
C2 - Hotel de France and Poetry
C3 - The Man Condemned to Death
C4 - Feasting With Panthers

Side D - Bonus Tracks
D1 - Gabriel (2025 New Orchestrated Instrumental)
D2 - The Man Condemned to Death (2025 New Orchestrated Instrumental)                   
D3 - The Lunatic Lover (Live, Official Bootleg)
D4 - Gabriel (Live, Official Bootleg)