Brooklyn-based goth-folk duo Charming Disaster’s upcoming album The Double—their seventh full-length release—explores the world that exists behind the one we know, featuring songs inspired by nature, mortality, magic, ritual, and literary genres ranging from science fiction to Victorian horror. The new album was co-produced by band members Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris with longtime collaborator, recording engineer Don Godwin. All but one of the ten tracks were recorded at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD, with one song recor...
Brooklyn-based goth-folk duo Charming Disaster’s upcoming album The Double—their seventh full-length release—explores the world that exists behind the one we know, featuring songs inspired by nature, mortality, magic, ritual, and literary genres ranging from science fiction to Victorian horror. The new album was co-produced by band members Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris with longtime collaborator, recording engineer Don Godwin. All but one of the ten tracks were recorded at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD, with one song recorded by circus music composer Peter Bufano in Boston, MA. The Double will be released on CD, as a 12-inch colored vinyl LP, and on all digital platforms on May 16, 2025. The vinyl will be released in a 2-disc package that also includes Charming Disaster’s 2024 compilation Time Ghost, a collection of singles released over the last decade.
The Double invites listeners to step across the border of an alternate reality, where spells are cast, time travel is possible, plants are taking over civilization, and vampires lurk in the shadows. Adventures in the darkness lie beyond the threshold.
The album’s ten songs include “Black Locust,” a lullaby about mortality; “New Moon,” a magical nature ritual; “Trick of the Light,” a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; “Time Machine,” in which Charming Disaster change the past and start over again; “Scavengers,” a walk in the woods with vultures and bones; “Beautiful Night,” a defiant response to struggles with depression; “Vitriol,” a tribute to artist Thomas Little, who turns guns into ink; “Haunted Lighthouse,” a swashbuckling sea voyage; “Gang of Two,” a true crime adventure; and “Green Things,” a love letter to what grows between the cracks (and its inevitable takeover).
The album features an array of talented collaborators. Co-producer Don Godwin, who has worked on Charming Disaster’s entire discography, contributed bass, drums, and horns as well as engineering and mixing. “Haunted Lighthouse” features Broadway percussionist Mike Dobson along with circus composer Peter Bufano, who played piano and accordion and engineered the track at Cirkestra World Headquarters in Boston, MA (with additional tracking at Tonal Park). “Scavengers” features cello recorded by Kate Wakefield of the duo Lung, who also created the string arrangement for “Beautiful Night.” Stefan Zeniuk of Gato Logo contributed saxophone to “Green Things.”
In conjunction with The Double, Charming Disaster is releasing the second edition of their “oracle deck” (similar to a Tarot deck). The Charming Disaster Oracle Deck contains 72 cards (including 12 new cards for the second edition), each representing one of the songs from Charming Disaster’s discography. The cards feature illustrations commissioned from more than thirty different artists. The deck can be used as a divination tool, or as a visual accompaniment to Charming Disaster’s music. The duo themselves use these cards in their live performances to determine the set through the element of chance.
Charming Disaster was formed by Bisker and Morris in 2012, inspired by the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the American Folk tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret. Together the duo write songs that tell stories about myth, magic, and mortality, using two voices to explore dark narratives and characters with a playfully macabre sensibility.
On their critically acclaimed albums Love, Crime & Other Trouble (2015), Cautionary Tales (2017), and SPELLS + RITUALS (2019), Charming Disaster explored death, crime, folklore, and the occult. On Our Lady of Radium (2022), they turned their attention to science and explored the life and discoveries of pioneering scientist Marie Curie. On Super Natural History (2023), they united the natural world and the metaphysical realm in a musical cabinet of curiosities.
The duo put out two releases in 2024: Time Ghost, an album-length collection of songs released as singles between 2013 and 2024; and Dance Me to the End of Bela Lugosi’s Lovesong, an EP of covers paying tribute to a few of the band’s influences: Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus, and The Cure’s “Lovesong.”
In Charming Disaster’s live shows, the duo combine vocal harmonies and clever lyrics with ukulele, guitar, and foot percussion, with a cabaret-influenced performance style that straddles the line between concert and theatre and has been described as “haunted vaudeville” (Splice Magazine).
Charming Disaster’s music has been featured on the spooky hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale. They have opened for legendary cello-rock ensemble Rasputina, Goth icon Voltaire, and Amanda Palmer’s punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. Their concerts have captivated audiences across the United States and in Europe. They have appeared alongside storytellers, comedians, fire eaters, puppets, burlesque artists, poets, and circus performers. Recent appearances have included Joe's Pub in NYC, Atlanta’s massive pop culture convention Dragon Con, Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, the Rochester Fringe Festival, Philadelphia’s Science History Institute, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, Cleveland's WizbangCircus Theatre, and the Coney Island Sideshow stage, as well as sundry bars, art galleries, theatres, bookstores, libraries, train cars, mausoleums, and museums.
LINKS:
Website: www.charmingdisaster.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/charmingdisaster
Instagram: http://instagram.com/charmingdisasterband
YouTube: http://youtube.com/charmingdisasterband
Bandcamp: http://charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1RjkfhamohczSXjFy5WcZh
The Double preorder link: charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/album/the-double
Tickets : Charming Disaster at The Foundry Cleveland June 5th with Cowboy Princess Brigade
https://www.ticketweb.com/event/charming-disaster-cowboy-princess-brigade-the-foundry-tickets/14325923?utm_medium=affiliate&irgwc=1&clickid=yKYzFM2SwxycTOrRPc1Gt0d7UksRjjwhTXGA2E0&camefrom=CFC_BUYAT_219208&impradid=219208&REFERRAL_ID=tmfeedbuyat219208&wt.mc_id=aff_BUYAT_219208&utm_source=219208-Bandsintown&impradname=Bandsintown&ircid=4272
C-Level Pete Francis Tickets :
https://www.ticketweb.com/event/peter-francis-of-dispatch-the-winchester-tickets/14338833?utm_source=AllEvents.in&utm_medium=event-discovery-platform&utm_campaign=lakewood-events
