Mike Johnson "The Gardens Of Loss"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Avant Prog
Label: Cuneiform Records
Format: CD, digital
Release date: January 30, 2026
Tracklist

1. Dies Irae (3:24) 

2. Boys With Toys (1:59) 

3. The Lords Of Creation (6:08) 

4. Destitution Meal (2:54) 

5. Transcience (7:23) 

6. Dumbstruck (7:53) 

7. The Gardens Of Loss (7:48) 

8. Souless In Gaza (8:28) 

Total Time 45:57

Credits

Mike Johnson ( Thinking Plague) – guitars, lap steels, fiddle, fretless banjo, sampler-synthesizer programming and "pencil guitars" (7)

   With

Simon Steensland – bass (except 7)

Morgan Ågren – drums and percussion (3–6)

Kimara Sajn – drums and percussion (1, 2, 8)

Jeremy Kurn – piano

Elaine diFalco – vocals

Dave Willey – bass, drums (7)

Bill Pohl – guitars (8)

Elise Roy – flutes

Caitlin Hilzer – oboe, English horn

Nuno Mourão – bassoons (3)

Mark Harris – clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone

Shane Endsley – trumpets

Jon Stubbs – trombones

Oene van Geel – violins, "concertmaster"

Pablo Rodriguez – violins

George Dumitriu – violas

Pau Sola Masafrets – cellos

César Puente Sandoval – double basses

All music composed and orchestrated by Mike Johnson.

Lyrics by Mike Johnson except for “Transience” by Elaine diFalco.

Strings and bassoons recorded by Björn Warning at Warning Studios, Amsterdam, Netherlands. warningstudios.nl

Woodwinds and reeds recorded by Loren Dorland at Mighty Fine Studios, Denver, Colorado.

Vocals, drums, basses, guitars, piano, trumpets, trombones, oboes and English horn recorded “at home.”

Mixed and mastered by Colin Bricker and Mike Johnson at Mighty Fine Studios, Denver, Colorado. mfpcolorado.com

Produced by Mike Johnson.

Mixed and mastered by Colin Bricker and Mike Johnson.

Description/Reviews:

Mike is influenced by harmonically adventurous twentieth-century classical music, as can be heard in the ambiguous tonality of the music, and the rigour of his dense, complex compositions. Like many rock musicians he is self-taught, but very knowledgeable, and his fusion of rock and classical music is as seamless as it is compelling and for the first time ever amongst his 8 albums as leader of Plague, he has had the opportunity to use orchestral instrumentation as one of the pillars of this work!

Perhaps this is the reason why this is a Mike Johnson album and not a Thinking Plague album?

Media/Samples
Bandcamp

Thinking Plague "Hoping Against Hope"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Avant Garde Progressive Rock
Label: Cuneiform Records
Format: CD, digital
Release date: February 10, 2016
Tracklist: 

1. The Echoes of Their Cries 
2. Thus Have We Made the World
3. Commuting to Murder
4. Hoping Against Hope
5. The Great Leap Backwards
6. A Dirge for the Unwitting

Line-up: 
Mike Johnson: guitar, samples, midi instruments
Mark Harris: soprano and alto saxes, B-flat standard and bass clarinets, flute
Dave Willey: bass, drums (5), accordion (2, 6)
Elaine di Falco: voice, accordion, piano
Robin Chestnut: drums, percussion
Bill Pohl: guitar
     with:
Adriana Teodoro-Dier: piano (2, 5, 6) and toy piano (2)
Simon Steensland: bass (5)
Mike Boyd: drums (2)
Kathryn Cooper: oboe (4)

Description/Reviews: 

Thinking Plague is a storied band, whose thirty-five year history has seen it cleave consistently to the extreme limits of what is possible to do within rock music. Much of the music it released has owed more to traditions external to rock, such as folk, chamber music, and particularly, the avant-garde tradition of twentieth-century classical music.
Thinking Plague are often cited as the leading light of the American arm of the ‘Rock In Opposition’ movement, genre-defying and, above all, unique.
The arrangements we hear on Hoping Against Hope are those we will hear live. Even when singer Elaine di Falco’s accordion is written and recorded in multiple voices, the parts are realizable by a single instrument.
Leader and composer Mike Johnson and newest member Bill Pohl’s tightly scored twin guitars are panned out wide enough for the listener to balance the pursuit of an individual voice against the ensemble texture, which is the creative focus, a carefully crafted polyphony served by each instrumental voice. Pohl’s addition brings a second electric guitar to the texture for the first time, enabling more sinuous scoring, rather than making the sound more ‘rock’.
There is a familiar vocabulary in play, a harmonic palette and a phraseology that has evolved considerably over the band’s lifespan without extreme points of rupture, despite major changes and sometimes long gaps between releases; this is clearly the same band that we heard in the 1980s, but Johnson is writing from a creative position that is fruitfully removed from that he occupied even four years ago. As demanding as this music may be, it is made to sound easy, and more importantly, beautiful.

Media/Samples 
The Echoes Of Their Cries

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