Brian Cook, known for his work with Russian Circles, SUMAC, and others, has recorded a singer-songwriter solo album under the moniker of Torment & Glory called We Left a Note with an Apology, scheduled for released on August 27 through Sargent House.
As the press release explains:
The seed was planted for Torment & Glory’s We Left a Note with an Apology sometime back in the mid-‘00s when Brian Cook (Russian Circles, SUMAC) found himself crashing on a friend’s couch after a late night of drinking. A weathered vinyl copy of Springsteen's Nebraska was on the living room turntable, spinning endlessly on its run-out groove after everyone else in the house had passed out. Cook opted to give it one last spin before calling it a night. There was so much dust on the platter that the needle only occasionally caught the groove, creating a wall of fuzz distortion with the occasional acoustic guitar and lonesome voice creeping out of the ether. What was ultimately just a fluke of a poorly treated LP became the sonic inspiration for a recording project that would eventually take on the name Torment & Glory. Cook started writing songs on a Fostex X-14 cassette four-track a few weeks later, hoping to emulate that downtrodden-songwriter-swallowed-by-white-noise sound.
The project didn't pan out for several years and, in 2019, Cook lost his voice, then in 2020 COVID hit. The project made sense, timing-wise, and also to rehabilitate his voice and make music through a difficult period The album releases digitally on Aug. 27, followed by vinyl on October 15-ish.
Listen to "No Big Crime" now:
We Left a Note with an Apology track list:
1. The Burning Car
2. Boylston and Pike
3. No Big Crime
4. Dusk on Main
5. The Kick Drum
6. Mexican Hat, Utah
7. All Men Forever
