Neil Hamburger - Seasonal Depression Suite (2023) [Hi-Res]

Neil Hamburger presents a new work from the songwriting team of Gregg Turkington and Erik Paparozzi. Seasonal Depression Suite is an album-based musical, sung by an all-star cast whose voices embody various guests stuck in a perfectly average chain-hotel, wallowing in self-pity and paranoia, re-living personal catastrophes both real and imagined, or simply trying to use the hotel vending machine. Expert music played by an all-star band, to boot.

This song-cycle is filtered through the lens of various guests stuck in a perfectly average chain hotel during the holiday season, wallowing in self-pity and paranoia, re-living personal catastrophes both real and imagined, or simply trying to use the hotel vending machine. The musical tapestry woven by Paparozzi and Turkington draws from the stage musicals, pop vocal albums, film scores, rock concept albums, new wave mini-masterpieces, and singer songwriter epics that have captured their imaginations since childhood, in pitch-perfect support of their fictitious hotel guests and their tormented concerns.

To sing these parts, a once-in-a-lifetime all-star cast was assembled - including Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac), Annabella Lwin (Bow Wow Wow), Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls), Bonnie Prince Billy, acclaimed singer / performance artist Puddles Pity Party, voice actress Natalie Peyser, J.P. Hasson (Pleaseeasaur), enigmatic vocalist (and Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter) A.J. Lambert, Paparozzi himself and, of course, Neil Hamburger.

Among the many musicians accompanying the cast were Scarlet Rivera (Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue), Danny Heifetz (Mr Bungle), Bär McKinnon (Mr Bungle), Prairie Prince (The Tubes), Atom Ellis (Dieselhed), Jason Schimmel (Secret Chiefs 3), and Alex Jules (The Monkees band) - an international assemblage whose talents give ‘Seasonal Depression Suite’ its epic sweep.

With all hands on board, Turkington and Paparozzi created their own kind of masterpiece, like Sinatra’s late-period concept album Watertown fused with the misfit comedy of Neil Hamburger - a work that looks at a cast of characters both ordinary and bizarre, as they make their way from one grievance to another, traveling from place to place, hoping to live, while waiting to die.

1.01 - Neil Hamburger - You Have Arrived (0:51)
1.02 - Neil Finn - Here Comes The Season Again (2:22)
1.03 - Neil Hamburger - My Calendar Lied (3:45)
1.04 - Annabella Lwin - It Felt Like A Dream (2:26)
1.05 - Puddles Pity Party - Maids Can’t Mop Up Memories (4:18)
1.06 - Neil Hamburger - Coming Apart At The Seams (2:18)
1.07 - Erik Paparozzi - I Passed It By (2:38)
1.08 - Alan Bishop - Security Guard (1:42)
1.09 - Neil Hamburger - Screen Time (1:27)
1.10 - Miranda Paparozzi - Cats And Dogs (1:24)
1.11 - Neil Hamburger - Sleeping For Free (3:21)
1.12 - Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The March (3:25)
1.13 - Neil Hamburger - If This Long Season (3:08)
1.14 - Natalie Peyser - Check-Out Time Is 11 A.M. (3:12)
1.15 - Neil Hamburger - Sugar Packets (0:46)