Album Notes

Mark Davis and the Inklings' new CD, 'because there's nothing outside' is both Davis' most personal work and also his most universal. He mostly recorded at a home studio on a laptop, affording him the time and space to experiment liberally with sounds and instrumentation before turning the tracks over to Matt Walin’s Bitemark Studios (where 'immaculate' was recorded and mixed). As indicated by the name 'mark davis and the inklings,' several musician friends have contributed: longtime inklings violinist Todd Compton and bassist Al Wolovitch, plus Simon Lynge and David Zink on guitars. The word 'inklings,' however, refers not only to the musicians involved with Mark’s music at any given time, but also to the songs themselves. While both 'you came screaming' and 'immaculate' include songs about spiritual matters, 'because there’s nothing outside' delves into “the god question” head-on. From the opening “everybody’s born believing”, with its posit that we’re all born completely trusting our caretakers and therefore bound to be let down, the song-cycle explores the tension of embattled viewpoints (“spoiling the game”, “your photograph”), asks some challenging and troubling questions (“the ground”, “only you”), and ultimately affirms life and the value of deconstructing our beliefs and our identities (“black cloud”, “yet”, “nothing outside”).