So we have arrived at the 20th anniversary this year of John Furst’s “Starlight Hotel”. The title of that album, with its mysterious twinkly modesty, charmingly belied its quiet magnitude; in previously assessing it, I compared it to a cathedral, which I still stand by. The work is monumental, epic in scope, and contributes an abundance of beauty to the cultural landscape in which it sits. Also like a cathedral, “Starlight Hotel” has a steadfast presence— like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, it watches as the surrounding movements of change (neighborhoods, styles, tastes) shift but stands situated assuredly amidst it all. That album transcends the times in which it was first conceived and therefore allows everyone a sense of newness to those who enter its musical doors.
Now, following that line of thinking of album-as-cathedral, imagine being granted access to a subterranean wing of that structure, and you are thus granted access to the wonders of “Pillow Flights”. Described as “a collection of outtakes, demo tracks, and alternate versions” of songs to “Starlight Hotel”, “Pillow Flights” is no mere sketchbook for the blueprint of the finished album. There is a seamless continuity between the two records; and while “Pillow Flights” is indeed yoked to the former, it is equally capable of standing alone as a fully realized work. If it is that subterranean wing in the cathedral, then it is every bit as bedecked with the same amount of glitter and enigmatic beauty as the rest of it. In short, these are no after thoughts; these are continued and expanded dreams.
The adventurous listener, with a proclivity toward full immersion and complete attention to an album, could no better than to procure both “Starlight Hotel” and “Pillow Flights” and play them back to back. The foothold in both of these might be ambient & experimental, but further listening will reveal that any genre labels are a little slippery— for just when one gets comfortable with one, then another supersedes it, and so forth. That’s really what some of the best architects & magicians do, as John Furst does: we might recognize the basics of the structure for what it looks like in whole, but any closer scrutiny indicates that the creator reshaped each component part as to become almost unnameable. Language in essence has to catch up to what is appearing before our ears and eyes. And in terms of catching up, both “Pillow Flights” and “Starlight Hotel” will remain sturdy and tantalizing in their quietly baroque dignity, long after the tides rise and ebb for other albums that seemingly sparkle on the shoreline but ultimately rust in short time. Catch up now or catch up later, but do not deny yourself the untouchable grandeur of these works - for you will kick yourself for not having arrived at them sooner.
~John Lane
credits
released August 4, 2023
All songs written and performed by John Furst
This is a collection of outtakes, demo tracks, and alternate versions of songs to Starlight Hotel.
Starlight Hotel was inspired by a Heather Bassa poem
Photo art by Yu-Ching Mak
Thanks to my family, Heather Bassa, John Lane, Gerrit and Alice Wessendorf, Lawrence Lanahan, Yu-Ching, Colin Furst, Susan, and Bouvet Island.
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