The Stars Are Marching Sadly Home (The Inmost Light)

This haunting 22-minute monologue, at times forlorn, at times lugubrious, half sung, half declaimed by David Tibet, is accompanied by strange creaking musique concrète soundscapes created by Tibet and his collaborator of long standing, Steven Stapleton (Nurse with Wound). The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home, subtitled TheInmostLight ThirdAndFinal, is an eerie epilogue of sorts to the preceding All the Pretty Little Horses. The album's additional vocalists include Andria Degens (to whom the work is dedicated), Roxanne Stapleton, and legendary English folksinger Shirley Collins, whose work Tibet has enthusiastically promoted on his Durtro label (it is Collins who reprises the song "All the Pretty Little Horses"). The music's subtle shading is reflected in the Louis Wain paintings used for its inner sleeve art, while its rich darkness is perfectly in keeping with Stapleton's cover painting, also entitled TheInmostLight.