Don McCloskey Announces New Album 'The Chaos and The Beauty'

Singer-songwriter Don McCloskey is set to release his latest LP, The Chaos and The Beauty on April 29th via Lemon Hill Records.

Produced by Devin Greenwood (Broken Orchestra, Sufjan Stevens) at his Brooklyn studio The Honey Jar, the album features nine originals, one re-imagination of a timeless classic and a sonic palette inspired by the music of the songwriter's youth including Peter Gabriel's So and Paul Simon's Graceland -- melding world music with a pop song structure and singer-songwriter storytelling. In celebration of The Chaos and The Beauty, Don will be performing the album in its entirety with his full band during a residency at Philadelphia's Fergie's Pub on March 21st and April 4th and 18th.

The first single from The Chaos and The Beauty, "First in Flight" was prominently featured in the season two finale of Mythic Quest, handpicked by series creator and Don's longtime collaborator, Rob McElhenney. It has been streamed over 500k times and counting.

In addition to Greenwood's production, the album includes performances by Chuck Staab (Melody Gardot) on drums, Ross Bellenoit (Amos Lee, The Sweetback Sisters) on electric guitar, percussionist Sebastian Guerrero (Cyndi Lauper, Meshell Ndegeocello, Boy George) and Mike Irwin (Elvis Perkins, Brazilian Girls) on trumpet. Ali Wadsworth and Alicia Walter contributed backing vocals.

"One thing I love about this record is that I made it with artists I'm proud to call friends and whose work I admire, says Don. "Devin Greenwood and I have known each other for 20 years. We played in the same circles and venues in Philly and moved to the same neighborhood in Brooklyn years ago. We've been talking about working on a record together ever since. We started the process with around thirty demos on acoustic guitar and piano and narrowed the thirty down to ten..."

"I think the best way to think of this album is more like a novel," says Don. "It begins with gunshots and riots in a chaotic world and a character eating a Chipwich at 2 PM and driving his car with 300,000 miles and the check engine light on into an uncertain future battling demons within, overcoming doubt, grappling with God and bills and aging and searching for meaning and salvation and finding love and moments of beauty and joy and connection and romance and music and the euphoric sunrise that awaits just beyond the coldest, darkest and most dreadful night of the soul."

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