THE GRISTLE & BONE AFFAIR [LP] (COLORED VINYL)

Limited colored vinyl LP pressing. An album counts the miles and years. It's a set of stories about people, about emotions and follies, and triumphs. About the changes in life. The Gristle & Bone Affair, Terry Lee Hale's 14th record, the second he's made in his home of 20 years in France, and first in his recently adopted city of Marseille. This finds him considering the life he left behind in the US, his time in Europe, and at some of the things the future might hold. It's an album that's taken time, three years in the writing and recording that started before the pandemic stopped the world. It also marks a vastly different approach to writing songs for Hale. Instead of the fingerpicked guitar front and center, often his hallmark sound, now the instrument - and his voice - stand as the bedrock of all the music here; he's become part of the ensemble. He also formed a close, lasting friendship was Chris Eckman of the Walkabouts, who's produced The Gristle & Bone Affair, as well as several of Hale's earlier albums.