Patrick Latella - Weep For The Moon

“Weep For The Moon” is a double LP length concept album that addresses humanity’s struggle to unify compassion, empathy, and kindness, with a message of hope that we can someday eradicate hate, greed, and violence...and by extension conserve and heal the planet.

The album musically covers genres from rock, to ambient, to neo-classical, to trance-funk/jam, to singer-songwriter...and is meant to take the listener on a journey all while focusing on an imperative message of our time.

"Weep For The Moon" was released on March 20th at 3:24pm Mountain Time, the minute of the Spring Equinox...a moment of equality, which is a central theme of the album.

This is a fully independent release.

The album was mastered by Grammy Award Winner David Glasser at Airshow Mastering.

The album was mixed and produced by Patrick Latella.

Patrick Latella is playing and singing everything you hear on the album except for the drums/percussion (Christian Teele), the saxophone solo on "Hopes For Tomorrow" on Side 3 (Pete Wall), the saxophones on "Speed Of Light" on Side 3 (Pete Wall), and the bass on the album's first track on Side 1 "Peace Can Be Achieved" (Dave Solzberg; doubled by Patrick also on bass) and the bass on the last track on the album, Side 4 "Return To The Garden" (Dave Solzberg).

Patrick is joined by 3 amazing guest vocalists: Emily Clark and Lisa McCarley, who are featured on the last track on Side 2, "Weep For The Moon", and Peter Stelling added harmonies to "For The Sake Of The Children" on Side 3.

Patrick Latella wrote all the music and lyrics on the album except for "One By One" on Side 2 (music co-written by Dave Solzberg), "Take Me Away" from Side 2 (lyrics co-written by Chelsey Burg; Patrick's step-daughter), and "Return To the Garden" on Side 4 (music co-written by Mitch Alden),

The album was recorded and engineered by Patrick Latella* at his own studio, nick-named The Glass Bead Game; additional vocals and Pete Wall's horn solo on "Hopes For Tomorrow" were recorded and engineered by Patrick at The Boulder Theater. Lisa McCarley's vocals were engineered and recorded by Patrick in Lisa's charming, mystical cabin in Eldora, CO

• The drums/percussion were recorded and engineered by Christian Teele
• Emily Clark's vocals were recorded and engineered by Eric Krop
• Patrick's playing of the Steinway grand piano on Side 1 and on "Take Me Away" from Side 2 was engineered and recorded by Jay Elliott at Octave Studios; Boulder, CO
• Pete Wall's horns on "Speed Of Light" on Side 3 were engineered and recorded by Pete Wall at Ballyquin Studios

Additional mixing and EQ assistance by Jay Elliott at Introvertigo Recording Studio, Boulder, CO

"Weep For The Moon" is an album 30 years in the making.
In the early 90s I was living in Boulder Colorado and playing in my first professional band. We were young, ambitious, eager to make our statement, and writing music that we hoped would take the listener on a journey. All my favorite music did that, and I was always more into "the album" than any one song. Music is a window into the infinite artistic cosmos, and I wanted to create my own windows. I grew up playing classical music, and was a violin student and orchestra member for 6 years. I love the sound of a large group of musicians playing together, and was always drawn to the complexity, dexterity, harmony, and melody of classical music. So many amazing artists have combined the sounds of orchestral composition and rock into sonic gold. I have always been digging for that gold.

I watched a sunrise in the summer of 1994, sitting amongst the yucca in the foothills above the Boulder/Denver sprawl, and documented what I saw...this was the lyrical foundation for "Weep For The Moon". I had written the main theme’s chord progression a few years earlier and the piece grew from there. Back then WFTM was a single song (albeit 45mins long), passing through movements, stitching together a message meant to address and encourage conservation of the environment. The earth is beautiful and precious...and we need to protect it. "Weep For The Moon" was a musical vehicle I wrote for that message.

The band broke up in 1996 and I went off in different musical directions, and "Weep For The Moon" got stored away in my mind...but few days went by where I didn't think about it. I spent the next 20 years spearheading several bands, always focused on original music...Butterhead, Fireweed, The Ethereal Plane, Acoustic Fusion, and my solo work. But something was always tugging at me to get back to my artistic core..something that fully encompassed my writing, my compositional vision, my guitar playing, and a message that meant something.

Then in the fall of 2018 I embarked on the daunting, but ultimately soul-fulfilling journey to finally record "Weep For The Moon". Over the next 4 and a half years I wrote another 45 minutes of music and began to formulate the cohesive album and message. As I revisited the lyrics, a new thought and message emerged: Yes, it is critical that we focus on environmental issues, but I believe that we cannot truly achieve the global level of conservation needed to turn things around unless we first address humanity's struggles with compassion. We cannot fix the climate issue if we don't fix the compassion issue. So thematically, the album's message shifted to focus squarely on humanity's struggle to unify compassion, empathy and kindness...and to try to help in some way to foster a positive message that could resonate with everybody that these virtues are vital to our future.

I truly hope you enjoy the ride, and that you resonate with the message.

Patrick Latella