Hanging in the Stars - Gramsci

Hanging In The Stars’ is the new single from what will be the final Gramsci album, ‘Know Return’ an ambitious concept album about a man driving through the dark night of his soul to the dawn.

Paul explains why this is the final album: “When the first Gramsci album ‘Permanence’ was released 25 years ago, at the turn of the millennium, I had the notion that I was embarking on a body of work and I decided that the first letter of each album title should create the overall title. Sophomore album ’Object’ followed 2 years later.

As it turned out, by the time Dave Holmes - my original partner in crime - and I got to the third album, 2005’s ‘Like stray voltage’, Gramsci went on a semi-permanent hiatus. I certainly thought there would be no more albums under that moniker and my creative output shifted first on to acoustic albums, (EDIN, Diamond Side) and then IDM/electronica (The Impending Adorations).

As an artist I believe you have to trust your instincts. I’ve come to call that belief ‘slot car theology’ - the idea that the slot car won’t travel around the track unless its needle is in the groove. I’ve always trusted that intuition. 15 years and 11 intervening albums later, I decided to resurrect Gramsci. I should in fact say I found myself writing a collection of songs that were quite obviously the new Gramsci album ‘Inheritance’ and I found my needle back in that groove. Greg Haver came on board and was followed by the incredible Marika Hodgson on 2022’s ‘The Hinterlands’ Richard Bell (Depeche Mode, U2, Nirvana) and I collaborated on a companion film ‘T/Here’ for which I composed new ambient instrumental music to underscore some of the spoken word pieces featured in the film. That collection of music was quietly released as ‘In Formation’