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ALBUM OF THE DAY

18 APRIL 2026

Decorate The Silence

KIRSTIN BERARDI, MARK SHOLTEZ

Released 16 April 2026

Mark Sholtez

****-

A study in restraint and intimacy - where slow tempos and finely shaped songs create a quietly absorbing and deeply human listening experience.

Across a two-decade career, Queensland-based songwriter Mark Sholtez has steadily refined his songwriting voice, moving from competent beginnings toward a more distinctive, deliberate minimalism. Early albums such as Real Streets (2006) and The Distance Between Two Truths (2010) situated him within a jazz-inflected singer-songwriter tradition, while The Edge of the World (2015) revealed a stronger lyrical identity, drawing inspiration from Paul Simon.

A decisive shift came with Twilight on the Trail (2018), where alongside vocalist Jen Mize, Sholtez reimagined a set of classic cowboy songs at an unusually slow tempo, focused on mood and space.

With Decorate the Silence, he extends this trajectory, writing a set of original songs with Kristin Berardi’s voice in mind - an approach that places tone, phrasing and emotional nuance at the centre of the work.

These are slow songs - often very slow - but not in a way that feels indulgent. Instead, the reduced tempo creates space for melody, lyric and vocal tone to register with unusual clarity.
Voice is central to this effect - phrasing is measured and precise, sustaining emotional tension without overstating it, and well suited to Sholtez’s understated writing.

The arrangements follow suit. Piano, light rhythm section and subtle harmonic movement provide a framework that never intrudes. There is little here that demands attention in a conventional sense - no dramatic peaks or overt gestures - yet the music holds focus through consistency of mood and careful control of detail.

What’s notable is how the album avoids sentimentality. Given the intimacy of the material, it could easily tip into something overly sweet or static.

Decorate the Silence ultimately succeeds through restraint: a quiet, deliberate work that reveals its depth gradually rather than all at once.

CLIPPED!

Yesterday Massive Attack shared their collaboration with Tom Waits, "Boots on the Ground." And sadly for all, their song is never more urgent and timely. The song chronicles the madness and rabid abandonment of mankind to the commands of "The Masters of War” as Dylan put it. It marks Massive Attack's first new music since 2020 and Waits’s first new recording since the 2011 album, Bad As Me.
The song is available today on streaming platforms, and will be followed by a 12" vinyl release. The 12” edition features "Boots on the Ground" on Side A, with an exclusively Waits B-side titled "The Fly” - a track featuring Waits’s trademark droll and sardonic spoken word.

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