For those wondering, this is a stellar collaboration between composer Michael Cashmore (Current 93) and vocalist Marc Almond of Soft Cell fame.

Two complementary creative sensibilities in intimate interlock; supreme compositional and vocal talents fusing to make uniquely dramatic musical and vocal interpretations of searing beauty and insight.

Specifically, this suite of songs features the heightened lyricism of a stunning array of cult poets, both contemporary and of yesteryear. ‘Feasting With Panthers’ is a stellar collaboration between composer Michael Cashmore (Current 93) and vocalist Marc Almond of Soft Cell fame, in the nearest thematic echo and nod, in the latter’s vast back catalogue, to the darker gothic influences of his celebrated Marc And The Mambas period and his acclaimed ‘L’Absinthe’ and ‘Jacques’ twisted chanson solo albums.

This album’s defining aesthetic is the setting of outsider poems to music. Poems by Count Eric Stenbock plus unique lyrical translations - by celebrated poet Jeremy Reed - of works by Jean Genet, Jean Cocteau, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, as well as Reed’s own poetry. The emphasis throughout is on decadent poems of thwarted love, ill-fated romance, self-destruction and death: many poems are woven with homo-eroticism, laced with opium dreamstates and all are accompanied by Michael Cashmore’s haunting and melancholic music that lends the verses a deft yearning for beauty and a bittersweet, melancholic longing for lost innocence and youth.

Originally released in 2011 and long since deleted, ‘Feasting With Panthers’ is now restored to back catalogue availability in a 2CD mini-album sleeve style capacity wallet complete with a fold-out poster lyrics sheet and featuring four bonus tracks.

The album was recorded over several years by the artists sending music files back and forth by e-mail and post; the artists never once recording together in the studio. Berlin based Michael Cashmore worked at home composing the music, playing all of the instruments and adding Marc’s vocals from files recorded in London.

The resulting album is a glorious union of sensual talents, both in voice and music, complementing the intriguing and evocative poetic texts.

Disc One: Feasting With Panthers (Original Album)
1. The Thief And The Night
2. Sonnet XI
3. Boy Caesar
4. The Lunatic Lover
5. Crime Of Love
6. Sleeper In The Valley
7. Song Of The Unwept Tear
8. Patron Saint Of Lipstick
9. Gabriel
10. El Desdichado
11. Hotel de France and Poetry
12. The Man Condemned to Death
13. Feasting With Panthers

After tackling the Gypsy folk songs of ostracized Soviet troubadour Vadim Kozin on 2009’s Orpheus in Exile, 80’s pop icon Marc Almond continued to pursue his avant-garde sensibilities on his what was then 12th studio album, Feasting with Panthers; a joint effort with experimental composer Michael Cashmore (Current 93) and which contained 13 musical interpretations of his favorite homoerotic poems.

In truth, it was an intriguing concept that breathed new life into classic pieces by the likes of Rimbaud (The Sleeper in the Valley), Gérard de Nerval (El Desdichado), and Jean Genet (The Man Condemned to Death), as well as showcasing the literary talents of celebrated poet Jeremy Reed on several new compositions (Boy Caesar, Patron Saint of Lipstick).

And yet by sticking to the piano-led torch song arrangements of their previous collaboration (Current 93’s adaptation of 1763 methodist hymn Idumea), the pair obviously wished to deliver forth some majestical source material, but, and in my humble opinion, they did not hit their anticipated high standard mark on each track.

That said, Almond is in mighty fine form, toning down his sometimes theatrical tendencies in favor of a more restrained vocal style that allows the new translations to take center stage. Killer cuts for me include the Hammond organ-driven The Song of the Unwept Tear, the softly brushed rhythms of the epic seven-minute title track, and the subtle sweeping strings of Hotel de France and Poetry, the latter of which provides the album’s best, and most infectious melody.

Given the over-arcing low-key and stripped-back production here, one has to admire Almond’s refusal to conform to commercial constraints, and whereas one might think that they would have been much better confining their creative flow to the duo’s previous two-track EP (the Count Eric Stenbock poems Gabriel and The Lunatic Lover, also both featured here) than trying to extend it to this highly ambitious full-length album, I myself love the ambition shown.

Bonus Tracks
1. Gabriel (2025 New Orchestrated Instrumental)
2. The Man Condemned to Death (2025 New Orchestrated Instrumental)
3. The Lunatic Lover (Live, Official Bootleg)
4. Gabriel (Live, Official Bootleg)

The project began after Current 93’s David Tibet gave Marc a book of poems by the Baltic German poet Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock. Marc was instantly attracted to the dark eroticism and the melancholic yearning of the verse and, so, contacted Michael Cashmore, whom he had previously worked with on Current 93’s reading of ‘Idumea’.

He felt Michael would have the right understanding of the verse with his intricate, beautiful musical compositions. From this, the project developed to include many of Marc’s favorite poems by some of his favorite outsider poets with common thematic ground.

Marc Almond and Michael Cashmore - Feasting With Panthers [Official Trailer]

Official Purchase Link

www.marcalmond.co.uk

www.michaelcashmore.com