“THE JOURNEY IS LONG AND WE ARE ONLY RIDERS. LONG AGO WE HAD COMMITTED TO OUR LITTLE ENDEAVOUR AND NOW THE TASK HAS OVERWHELMED US, SO THAT WE HAVE SIMPLY BECOME AXELS AND SOCKETS IN A GROWING MENACING MACHINE.” – JEFFREY LEE PIERCE
INFO
ARTIST
THE JEFFREY LEE PIERCE SESSIONS PROJECT
RELEASE DATE
29.09.2023
CATALOGUE NO.
GRCD/LP/DIGITAL 1087
TRACKLIST
“Mother Of Earth” Dave Gahan
“La La Los Angeles” The Coathangers
“Yellow Eyes” Jeffrey Lee Pierce (feat. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis)
“Debbie By The Christmas Tree” The Amber Lights
“Go Tell The Mountain” Mark Lanegan (feat. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis)
“Going Down The Red River” Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind
“The Stranger In Our Town” Peter Hayes, Leah Shapiro & Humanist
“Secret Fires” Suzie Stapleton (feat.) Duke Garwood
“Tiger Girl” Hugo Race
“On The Other Side” Nick Cave feat. Debbie Harry
“Idiot Waltz” Cypress Grove
“Tiger Girl” The Amber Lights
“From Death To Texas” Alejandro Escovedo
“Vodou” Mark Stewart
“Time Drains Away” Lydia Lunch, Josef Van Wissem, Jim Jarmusch
“Lucky Jim” Chris Eckman & Chantal Acda
“I Was Ashamed” Pam Hogg (feat. Warren Ellis & Youth)
“Bad America” Sendelica (feat. Wonder & Dynamax Roberts)
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Story
Nearly ten years in the making, “The Task Has Overwhelmed Us” is the long-awaited fourth volume in The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project series. Coming Sep 29 via Glitterhouse Records.
Conceived in 2006 by the late Gun Club titan’s guitarist Cypress Grove the Project has always aimed to highlight Pierce as one of America’s most fascinatingly influential singer-songwriters of the last century while propelling his outpourings into modern times by placing it in the hands of former collaborators, friends and fans. Following 2009’s We Are Only Riders, 2012’s The Journey Is Long and 2014’s Axels and Sockets, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us presents stellar interpretations of tracks from Pierce’s Gun Club and solo canons along with fresh works constructed from rehearsal skeletons, previously unheard lyrics, songs only performed live. Taking song ideas without lyrics and words looking for musical settings gave rise to what Cypress Grove calls “Frankenstein songs”.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce first roared out of the tunnel in 1981 with the massively influential punk-blues of the Gun Club’s Fire Of Love debut. This was followed by monolithic titles including Miami, The Las Vegas Story and Mother Juno along with solo albums including Wildweed and Ramblin’ Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove With Willie Love. In March 1996, Jeffrey Lee Pierce died after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
Then along came London-based guitarist Cypress Grove, who’d played with Jeffrey in his final years gigging and on 1992’s Ramblin’ Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove With Willie Love. Sorting out his loft one day in 2006, Cypress found an anonymous cassette containing bedroom rehearsals for Ramblin’… “very vague but good enough to work from,” he says. “So I had the idea of asking people who worked with Jeffrey, were friends with him or who simply admired his work to help me complete the songs.”
“The Cypress Tape” would soon be joined by other unrealized song sources from diverse tapes supplied by key characters in Jeffrey’s life coming on board, including Gene Temesy, who started the Gun Club fan club in 1984 and brought home Pierce’s ‘98 autobiography Go Tell The Mountain, writer-DJ-musician Phast Phreddie Patterson and Jeffrey’s sister Jacqui, who supplied unfinished songs and previously unseen writings she’d discovered after her brother’s death. “The source material for some of the songs was so vague that it could be interpreted in many ways,” says Cypress. “There was no definitive or ‘original’ version. It was like trying to restore a painting where much of the material was missing.” said Cypress.
From Dave Gahan’s opening haunted piano ballad take on ‘Mother of Earth’ through, for example, Mark Lanegan singing ‘Go Tell The Mountain’ backed by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave (who back Jeffrey himself on ‘Yellow Eyes’), Cave duetting beautifully with Debbie Harry again on ‘On the Other Side’ to Sendelica and Secret Knowledge’s Wonder hotwiring ‘Bad America’ into caterwauling mayhem mixed by veteran electro-Def Jam producer Jay Burnett, NY rapper Dynamax acknowledging Jeffrey’s hiphop obsession over the juddering beats. The stellar roll-call of contributors features also Lydia Lunch, Youth, Jim Jones, Mark Stewart, Hugo Race, Cypress Grove, Mick Harvey and J.P. Shilo als The Amber Lights, Suzie Stapleton, Duke Garwood, Pam Hogg, The Coathangers, Peter Hayes (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) and Leah Shapiro, Humanist, Chris Eckman (The Walkabouts), Jozef van Wissem, Jim Jarmusch, Chantal Acda and even Jeffrey himself from original tapes.
„It’s a wild ride, but then life with Jeffrey Lee Pierce always was“– Kris Needs