SOUNDTRACK: MISSY MAZZOLI-Vespers For A New Dark Age (2015).
Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for a New Dark Age, is a 30-minute suite for singers, chamber ensemble and electronics. The piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the 2014 Ecstatic Music Festival.
It’s a fascinating mix of traditional and contemporary instruments. And there’s a surprise musician as well: Martha Cluver and Virginia Warnken Kelsey from Roomful of Teeth, provide operatic soprano voices. Mazzoli’s own ensemble Victoire, provides the music while Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche adds percussion and thunderous pounding.
As the suite opens, electronic chimes sound before the beautifully soaring voices come in (I don’t know who is who). The instrumentation is complex and the vocals are often in English (but operatic and not always obvious to hear). There’s some great rising and falling notes from various instruments.
The first piece is called “Wayward Free Radical Dreams” and I like the surprise of the simple English phrase “Come on, come on come on” A bell ringing is the segue into part 2, “Hello Lord.” Over a lonely flute and some synths, the vocalist sings a poem by Matthew Zapruder for lines like: “hello lord / sorry I woke you / because my plans / are important to me / and I need things / no one can buy / and don’t even know / what they are / I know I belong / in this new dark age.”
I love the rising and falling notes of “Interlude 1″ over the fast violin moments. “Come On All You” opens with some ticking hi-hats and squeaky violins. There’s a lot of drums in this song—some punctuate the melody until the soprano voice takes over and then around 4 minutes into the section, the drums burst to life. “New Dark Age” has some moody synths under the soaring voices and “Interlude 2” opens with the sound of big deep bells.
“Machine” has a mechanical staccato feel in both strings and voices. When it returns to “Come on Come on” refrain (this time with two voices), it’s very cool. The “Postlude” ends the piece with moody strings and distorted mechanical sounds that overwhelm the voices at times. The piece ends on an up note but not in an overwhelmingly happy feeling.
The final piece on the disc is not part of the suite, although it fits in sonically. It is called “A Thousand Tongues (Lorna Dune Remix)” and it has echoing pianos and overlapping synths. While this piece is pretty it is probably the least interesting of the disc. Perhaps because there are fewer voices and more synth melodies. Perhaps because it is a remix. The song feels fine, but not as compelling as the suite.
I was happy to discover his disc, which really explores different classical motifs.
[READ: March 15, 2015] All My Puny Sorrows
As with many books, but especially those published by McSweeney’s, which I always read, I didn’t really know what this was about. I can pretty much guarantee it would not have been high on my list had anyone told me it was about dealing with a suicidal sibling.
But what’s great about the McSweeney’s imprint is that they gather such a wide variety of books and most of them are of such good quality that I know I won’t be disappointed. And this book not only didn’t disappoint, I found it really fantastic.
The story is fairly simple, although from my perspective it was also fairly exotic. The main action of the book takes place in present day Winnipeg. But there are flashbacks to the main characters’ childhood in 1979. And the way it opens–with the family watching as the house that their father built is put on the back of a truck and driven away is one of the more memorable opening passages of a book that I’ve read.
The family consists of the narrator Yolandi, her older sister Elfrieda and their parents. And, perhaps most exotic to me they are Mennonites. Their family is not entirely pious in the tradition in their town–they are seen as somewhat less than observant. Things were made even worse by the deliberately provocative nature of Elf. She was creative, she loved to read and she had a real sense of outrage. The church pastor once accused her of “luxuriating in the afflictions of he own wanton emotions.” She embraced poetry, particularly the line “all my puny sorrows” and decided it would be her slogan. So she began spray paining AMPS all over the town. (more…)
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