Midnight To Morning

Mark writes: I hadn't finished a song in a long, long while, when one morning my wife Julie bounded downstairs having dreamed a vivid song called 'The Past Won't Last.' We finished it quickly together, and by the end of that evening there were five more finished songs. Three weeks later an additional batch of material arrived and the Midnight To Morning Project began in full. With great synchronicity I was contacted by my old friend Tony Fischer, an amazing musician who I've worked with on and again for twenty years; most recently in Big Circle and the Noonday Ruin Project on which he plays much of the ethereal and haunting guitar. Tony has been a member of such diverse groups as the Monarchs, Wolves in the Kitchen and the legendary power-pop group The Michael Guthrie Band. Tony and I decided early on that we wanted to strive for simplicity, using only acoustic instruments and limited instrumental arrangement; focusing instead on vocal melody and harmony. Midnight To Morning is as close as I will probably get to a concept album. Nearly all the songs address night, sleep, dreaming, and/or awakening (literally and metaphorically) and the music, from the first lyric 'Night, wide awake in the night...' to the last 'Take a breath of the blue dawn...' presents as a sort of nocturne; a journey from 'midnight to morning.' I really like how it all came out and hope you do as well. Thanks to brother Steve for once again providing great album artwork. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Midnight To Morning is Mark Roebuck's first project since the 2006 release of Some Half-Remembered Thing, a collection of glistening pop-underground recorded with his last band, Noonday Ruin. This recording marked the first time Mark and Tony had collaborated in the studio together. Bruce Brodeen, president of Not Lame Records wrote in reviewing the CD that Mark soars and shines as only he can. He has one of the more unique and truly beautiful voices you'll hear in pop... Rock critic Robert Pally, in Swiss Records magazine, gave the CD 7.5 stars, and Sweden's Timo Kangas declared it to be 'a cult album for those who love Big Star and the Hollies...' Noonday Ruin was made up of several members of his former ensemble, Big Circle, a five man power guitar group that in 2005 released a fourteen song CD called Things May Change that received wide praise and rave reviews. In the All Music Guide, Lindsay Planer gave Big Circle's CD 4 stars, and wrote that it was a stunning collection of interesting modern jangle-pop compositions, brimming with catchy and charismatic hooks that more often than not take the melodies into compelling and unexpected places...

Mark Roebuck's material is as brilliant as ever. In Shindig Magazine, Jon Mills wrote that the CD'smusic had crafted melodies backed by chugging guitars. It's way better than most American Power Pop. Fufkin Magazine wrote that the material was as radio friendly as indie pop can get. In 2005, Mark also released Tribe of Heaven, Imagine We Were, a collection of recordings originally done with Dave Matthews in 1989-90 that has become one of CD Baby's 20 top selling albums of all time. It includes three co-written compositions. On of these, The Song That Jane Likes, was included on the Dave Matthews Band's first release, Remember Two Things in 1994; their 2004 Live At the Gorge CD; and on RCA's July 2008 DMB Live Trax #12. In 2003, Not Lame Records released Goodbye September, an anthology of recorded music from Mark's 1980's power pop band, the Deal, a band that was at one time signed to Bearsville/Warner Brothers Records. This CD met with excellent reviews, and was one of Not Lame's best sellers of 2003. Writing in Pop Matters Music Magazine, Gary Glauber cited it as one of the top ten releases of 2003, stating that Mark Roebuck writes songs based on acoustic sounds with harmonies, and gentle folk rock. Add the kind of powerful guitarist you'd only find in louder bands and you've