Memory Drawings – deathbed requests

Memory Drawings is an Anglo/American/Australian collective led by Minneapolis-raised, Casablanca-based hammered dulcimer player Joel Hanson (Judgement of Paris). Deathbed Requests, their fifth album and second release for Sound In Silence after the Phantom Lights mini album back in 2019, consists of eight dense, dulcimer-driven, post-rock tracks that feel like chapters in a larger sonic narrative. The title is both a reference to Joel’s irreparable dissatisfaction with the appalling state of technofeudal America and the utopian desire to right its most egregious injustices. The title also refers to actual thoughts left unsaid to a few close friends in Joel’s life who have drifted away or died since A Few Scattered Hours was released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. To forge the album’s more aggressive, rock-focused sound, Joel once again turned to former bandmates and friends from his hometown of Minneapolis. Dulcimer-player and percussionist Joel Smith contributed to the initial sketches of these tracks that were later made far more captivating by the contributions from musicians Joel hadn’t collaborated with in nearly three decades. Josh Larson (bass) and his brother Aaron Kesher (guitar) played alongside Joel in the early 90’s band Passage and his brother Brad (bass, guitar, keyboards, and interludes) was instrumental in shaping the sound of trance-pop pioneers Judgement of Paris. The evocative melodies of violinst Sarah Kemp (Brave Timbers) and cellist Peter Hollo (Tangents / FourPlay String Quartet) also grace several tracks on Deathbed Requests. The album closes with A Final Request, which began as an improvisation between Joel and Ben Chatwin eight years ago and remains the only track to be released from those sessions in Edinburgh. The album was mixed by Ross Halden and mastered by Simon Scott (Slowdive).

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