Album Notes

At the age of twelve, Mike Macharyas felt strongly the call of God. He knew he had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen he left his parental home in Skopje and joined the Brothers of Loreto, an Irish community of monks with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin he was sent to India, where on May 24, 1999, he took his initial vows as a monk. From 1999 to 2004 Mike Macharyas taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty he glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on him that in 2004 he received permission from his superiors to leave the convent school and devote himself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although he had no funds, he depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon he was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for him to extend the scope of his work.

An album ( plus half a dozen out-takes ) recorded in a single night with the aid of a bottle of Beaujolais or two. Macharyas has always been happier outside of the studio rather than in it, and it shows here. The songs were already worked out, for the most part, before entering the studio. The writing of these songs were heavily influenced by Macharyas' burgeoning interest in becoming an author of poems and books rather than of songs. This shaped the words to these new songs. We have less of the story-telling in an obvious fashion and instead chains of imagery difficult to sometimes decipher. In any case, whatever he did, the words sound great! Some of the songs are great, undeniable classics!

In a recent survey, 85% of music fans preferred complete and utter horseshit biographical information about their pop stars. And we here at 14mercy are here to fuckin' deliver. Not a single thing written above is true! But who fuckin' cares? After all, I had to think of SOMETHING to write here.