Missy Mazzoli's Vespers for a New Dark Age Due March 31st: to Feature Lyrics by Matthew Zapruder
Brooklyn-based composer Missy Mazzoli's newest album, Vespers for a New Dark Age, is her most collaborative yet. The album is a new kind of vespers: one for the digital age. Mazzoli's daringly reimagined prayer service replaces the customary verses with lyrics by Matthew Zapruder that address belief in God and technology. Glenn Kotche (Wilco) and synth producer Lorna Dune also collaborated on this album. It's due March 31st from New Amsterdam Records. More:
New Amsterdam Records is proud to announce Vespers For A New Dark Age, the new record from composer Missy Mazzoli, in collaboration with her ensemble Victoire, Glenn Kotche (of Wilco), synth producer Lorna Dune and virtuosic vocalists Mellissa Hughes, Martha Cluver and Virginia Warnken (of Roomful of Teeth). Vespers will see its release on March 31, 2015. [...]
Over two years in the making, the record reimagines the traditional vespers prayer service and replaces the customary sacred verses with poems by Matthew Zapruder that contend with themes like technology, God and more. Mazzoli set out to create a more modern version of the vespers service, on her own terms, to explore the intersection of our modern technological age with the archaic formality of religious services. Vespers is meant to beg questions of its listeners -- What haunts us in this "new dark age"? What role does ritual play in our lives? Is there room for the supernatural in an increasingly technological world?
On Vespers, acoustic movements that feature timbres spanning the sonic spectrum -- from delicate violin runs and lush synth pads to soaring operatic vocals and pulsating percussion -- alternate with three purely electronic interludes, where Mazzoli combines her compositional skills with forward-thinking remixing and sampling techniques. These interludes, finessed by electronic producer Lorna Dune, are meant to capture the elements of the compositions that came before them on the record as well as hint at themes to come, solidifying the tracks into a singular, streamlined body of work. Vespers also includes "A Thousand Tongues, feat. Deidre Muro of Savoir Adore (Lorna Dune Remix)", a re-imagining of a Mazzoli composition that was recently deemed "the most striking and uncanny music Victoire has ever made" by Pitchfork.
The group's eclectic instrumentation of strings, clarinet and synthesizers has been expanded to include a large pallet of electronic sounds and junk percussion, complemented by Kotche, whose massive drumset included three sets of crotales, glockenspiel, and a seemingly endless battery of cymbals. The vocalists often sing in quasi-baroque harmonies that glided over this landscape of percussion and synths, only to collapse into a haunting solo line. [...]
Learn more about this collaboration courtesy of New Amsterdam Records. Score your copy of Vespers for a New Dark Age beginning March 31st.