With the new album 'Cocoon,' arriving December 4 via Partisan Records, Morphine - late singer/bassist Mark Sandman, baritone saxophonist Dana Colley, and drummers Jerome Deupree and Billy Conway - draws from recordings made and then abandoned by the band in 1998, during the period leading up to what would become 'The Night' album.
The original recordings were produced by Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade (Radiohead, the Pixies, Hole). Decades later, Kolderie and Sabine Hrechdakian, Mark Sandman’s life partner, worked closely together to transfer the original tapes and select the songs and mixes that would become Cocoon, with Kolderie newly mixing the recordings and original member Dana Colley adding new saxophone parts to three songs.
First single “Cocoon" was initially recorded in 1998 with Kolderie and Slade. The newly mixed version has never been heard until now.
WATCH / LISTEN TO “COCOON” HERE
“Mark loved performing and traveling the world, but he also loved to come home and cocoon, " explains Hrechdakian. She continued, “It was our home and his studio, so there was always music happening, tape running, friends dropping by at all hours, lots of cooking. The lyrics speak to the hardship of being away from loved ones while the band was on tour and the joys of homecoming. There’s also this thread of space travel that runs through the album, so I imagine the cocoon as a kind of spaceship for two who leave the world and return to it.”
Alongside the bass and saxophone at the center of Morphine’s music, these sessions incorporate piano, acoustic guitar and contributions from several drummers who are longtime friends and collaborators. Sandman ultimately set aside this material as he moved in a different direction for what became 'The Night,' released posthumously in 2000, a year after his death.
The original multitrack tapes of the sessions remained untouched until 2023 when Hrechdakian and Kolderie began digitizing them as part of an archival effort. “I was astounded by the sound of the tracks when I put them up at the studio where we transferred them,” Kolderie says. “It really felt so right to be bringing them back from the crypt into the world again.”
Together, Hrechdakian and Kolderie selected the songs and mixes that would ultimately form Cocoon. Colley was initially hesitant to revisit the material, but hearing the recordings changed his mind. Working with Kolderie in early 2026, he recorded new saxophone parts for three songs, playing alongside recordings made with Sandman nearly three decades earlier. For Colley, returning to the music meant more than simply completing a recording: nearly three decades later, he was once again playing alongside Sandman. "Coming back to these recordings years later was a surreal experience," he explains. "It was like having one foot in the past and one in the present, with my saxophone bridging the gap.”
Morphine superfans may recognize different versions of some of these songs from various unsanctioned releases and the 2004 Sandbox compilation.
Cocoon is accompanied by never-before-seen artwork and photography by Sandman, including its cover image, a photograph he took of Hrechdakian’s reflection in a train window en route to Antwerp in 1998. The album’s reverse features Sandman himself, camera in hand, capturing his reflection in a mirror at home.
The collection also includes liner notes by acclaimed American poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib, who writes about discovering Morphine after Sandman’s death and the unusual opportunity Cocoon offers both longtime listeners and those encountering the band for the first time. Reflecting on Colley’s return to the recordings, Abdurraqib writes of the rare opportunity to “touch it again, renew it in some way, bring it closer to the new, living world.”
Track list:
1. Tomorrow
2. Wig
3. Patience
4. Spaceman Charm
5. Justine
6. Moons of Jupiter
7. Cocoon
8. Pretty Face
