“This album is about places, real and imagined. The trajectory of a melody lost among church towers. The cardinal points that orient human activity. The...

“This album is about places, real and imagined. The trajectory of a melody lost among church towers. The cardinal points that orient human activity. The multiple dimensions of superstring theory and a melody from a nearby universe. The idea of a place – the afterlife – and a piece of music written as a gesture to help my old dog Lloyd navigate the bardo. And then our internal place, our world within our own mind, which if you learn to control yourself, you become irresistible.” Thusly, composer & electric guitarist D. J. Sparr describes his new album, Hard Metal Cantüs, adding that it also features “a nod to Frank Zappa and Henry Cowell.” Featuring performances by The Lee Trio, Third Coast Percussion, Del Sol String Quartet, Lubbock Chamber Symphony (with rising-star tenor Corbin DeSpain), and D. J. Sparr himself, Hard Metal Cantüs takes listeners on a sonorous journey of ringing bells, metal percussion, searing strings, abstract haiku vocals, and finally funk-rock metal guitars. Baton Rouge-based composer & electric guitarist D. J. Sparr has been described as a “A Texas guitar whiz with the chops to bang his sounds out to all fields across the entire music spectrum.” Who are we to resist?