Super Natural history

released March 3, 2023

Track List:

  1. Monsters

  2. Mold and the Metals

  3. Grimoire

  4. Hellebore

  5. Bat Song

  6. Disembodied Head

  7. Six Seeds

  8. Paris Green

  9. Manta Rays

  10. Wrong Way Home

 

Media coverage:

SNH Quotes

“There is just no bad spot to start with in Charming Disaster’s catalog, and this is indeed another creative and glowing effort, where the natural world and metaphysical realm are explored with a murder ballad, folk noir and tense cabaret hybrid that no one else could replicate.”

–Tom Haugen, Take Effect Reviews 

“The music ranges from delicate folk to solid pop to show-tune-like...songs like ‘Bat Song,’ with quiet delicate acoustic strings, the distant trumpet, and tight vocal harmonies, are just gorgeous. This record is certainly charming. A disaster? Not at all.”

–Jersey Beat

“The occult and the natural world go hand-in-claw for goth-folk darlings Charming Disaster…On their fifth album, Super Natural History, Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris offer 10 tracks laden with gorgeous harmonies, lilting guitar, and ukulele riffs, making it clear that we are all barely contained animals under the skin and yet somehow, our passions can elevate us into something more magical…Super Natural History is a…gem of startling beauty and originality."

–BUST Magazine

“Since 2012, this super-smart DIY Brooklyn goth cabaret duo have kept themselves incredibly busy, and pandemic be damned, their momentum is only building. This fifth LP follows last year’s brilliant Our Lady of Radium…While they may cast themselves to the darker side, their music is lush and inviting…once you’re in it, you’re in deep and not going anywhere.”

–The Big Takeover

“Charming Disaster are unusual, spooky, wickedly talented, and completely unafraid to delve deep into the underworld in exploration of all things lurking in the dark...they have a knack for making the macabre fun.”

–Mixed Alternative

“Think Madame Blavatsky meets Edward Gorey…meets Nick Cave, and you’re partway to understanding Charming Disaster’s caustically funny and certainly darkly humorous brand of folksy folklore—the intersection of death and daring, mayhem and mirth, chimes and crimes and magic realism.”

–ICON

“Dipping into the delightfully darker realms…songs that combine the natural and supernatural worlds in a way that makes the strange seem natural, perhaps even inevitable.”

–Michael Doherty’s Music Log

“CHARMING DISASTER ARE THE KIND OF BAND THAT TAKES PURE DELIGHT IN THE DARK AND MYSTERIOUS, AND THEIR AUDIENCE IS DRAWN BY THAT.”

–IF IT’S TOO LOUD

“AN EXPLORATION OF WONDER…AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE OCCULT, THE FOLKLORIC, AND THE LOVE OF AMATEUR SCIENCE…BRINGS A MAGICAL FEELING TO FOLLOWING OUR HUMAN CURIOSITY.”

–GLIDE MAGAZINE

“You’ve seldom if ever been entranced in quite this way…Super Natural History is another very fine feather in the band of the band’s felt-brimmed top hat…you just can’t turn away.“

–Stereo Embers

“Glorious…the kind of soundtrack you’d expect to find on a 1930s cartoon about a Prohibition-era voodoo funeral…just be careful if they offer you a drink.”

–Goldmine Magazine

Brooklyn-based goth-folk duo Charming Disaster’s fifth album, Super Natural History, is a musical cabinet of curiosities, featuring songs inspired by both the natural world and the metaphysical realm; the cover art itself is composed of curios and oddities collected on their travels or gifted to them by fans. The album was produced by band members Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, half the tracks recorded at Figure 8 in Brooklyn, NY, the rest at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD with the very last song being a home recording. Super Natural History will be released on CD, as a 12-inch colored vinyl LP and on all digital platforms on March 3, 2023.

The duo’s latest release unites the worlds of magic and science with ten songs that explore subjects like witchcraft, monsters, and the underworld alongside bats, plants, poisons, and parasites. Super Natural History is an alchemical experiment of sorts—magic and science may seem like contradictory concepts, but for Charming Disaster they are opposite sides of the same coin: alternate ways to see the world and consider its mysteries.

The album features an array of talented collaborators. Four tracks were recorded in 2021 at Figure 8 in Brooklyn, NY engineered by Hillary Johnson with bassist Bob Smith and drummer Rob Garcia joining Bisker and Morris who provided their trademark interlocking vocal harmonies, guitar, and ukulele. Five songs were tracked at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD with longtime Charming Disaster collaborator, Don Godwin contributing bass, drums, and horns as well as engineering and mixing. Charming Disaster cut the final track at home by themselves, in a nod to 2022’s Our Lady of Radium, which they had to record in isolation due to the COVID pandemic.

In conjunction with Super Natural History, Charming Disaster is releasing an “oracle deck” of cards similar to a Tarot deck. The duo has long used Tarot cards to determine the course of their live performances to introduce an element of chance. The Charming Disaster Oracle Deck features cards with original illustrations inspired by each of the 60 songs Charming Disaster has released to date commissioned from more than two dozen artists. The limited-edition deck is intended for use in cartomancy or as a visual interpretation of Charming Disaster’s music.

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, 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, myth, magic, folklore, and the occult. On their last album, Our Lady of Radium (2022), they turned their attention to science and explored the life and discoveries of pioneering scientist Marie Curie.

In their live performances, they combine vocal harmonies and clever lyrics with ukulele, guitar, and virtuosic foot percussion, drawing listeners into a haunting, offbeat universe of paranormal romance, con artists, and ancient gods, playing out against a backdrop of nightclubs, car chases, circus tents, the afterlife, and beyond with great theatricality. 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, Amanda Palmer’s punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. Their concerts have captivated audiences across the United States. They have appeared alongside storytellers, comedians, fire eaters, puppets, burlesque artists, poets, and circus performers. Recent appearances have included Joe's Pub in Manhattan, 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 Wizbang Circus Theatre, and the Coney Island Sideshow stage as well as sundry bars, art galleries, bookstores and libraries.