aconitum vulparia
First half is difficult and beautiful; second half is mournful and ethereal. There are deep movements within. Jessica Moss is an amazing artist.
Favorite track: Opened Ending.
JaphyRyder
Because everything Jessica Moss does is magic....
I've been listening to this daily since the release. Stunningly good.
Favorite track: Galaxy Heart.
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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Deluxe 180gram vinyl edition pressed at Optimal (Germany) in jacket and artworked inner printed with UV matte varnished inks. Includes DL card. Artwork by Jessica Moss.
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Galaxy Heart is the companion album to Phosphenes (Nov. 2021) and completes an intensive body of work that Montreal composer-violinist Jessica Moss wrote, performed and self-produced in deep isolation throughout 2020.
As A Closer Listen wrote in its Top Ten Modern Composition list for 2021, “few musical voices represent so well the estrangement and intensity of our times; Moss is among the best of them.” Galaxy Heart consolidates this assessment, revealing the more exploratory and extemporaneous side of her profoundly expressive instrumental lyricism. Where Phosphenes showcased some of Moss’ most deliberate and accomplished post-classical compositions to date, Galaxy Heart quivers with a raw and searching energy, juxtaposing rough-hewn and honed pieces. Expanding the palette to include spiky semi-improvised electric guitar along with remotely-recorded guest contributions from drummer Jim White (Springtime, Xylouris White, Dirty Three) and contrebassist Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) on a couple of tracks, the album inscribes a (mostly) instrumental space of bristling anguish, melancholia, resoluteness and conviction.
Opening with the distorted dissonant string clusters of “Resistance Creature” and the through-composed knock-out “Uncanny Being”, with White’s roiling drums and Amar’s upright bass the simmering substratum for Moss’ alternately gritty and rounded violin movements, Galaxy Heart pivots to electric guitar and sludged post-industrial drone on “This Continuous Spectrum”, a descending melodic motif recurring over doomy low-end bursts and a slow broken-steam-engine beat. Side One closes with two vocal tracks: “Is There Room For All Of It” (again featuring White and Amar) has Moss singing and playing organ in a spine-tingling longform unison melody; the chilling title track “Galaxy Heart” calls back fractured electric guitar and droning pulse, with Moss belting out initially strangled, strident lines that give way to gently layered voicings in a cratered spaciousness—these dynamics then cycling forward like the sequences of a dying star. Side Two features three superb violin tudes, each distinguished by Moss’ distinctively amplified violin timbres and her unique ear for the tropes of various folk traditions, interspersed with the plaintive but stately vocal song “Enduring Oceans”, and closing with “Opened Ending”, her mesmerizing contribution to Constellation’s Corona Borealis Longform Singles Series from 2020, previously released only as a digital track and short film by indie legend Jem Cohen (Fugazi’s Instrument documentary, Benjamin Smoke, Museum Hours).
Galaxy Heart is cosmic music of dark matter and interstellar dust, of gravitational waves and celestial grit that connect messy terrestrial life—with its human, animal, natural suffering and beauty—to chaotic and unruly universal forces.
credits
released October 7, 2022
Holy Drums on "Uncanny Being (Violin Study #2)" and "Is there Room For All Of It" by Jim White
Bass Of The Earth on "Uncanny Being (Violin Study #2)", "Is There Room For All Of It", "Light Falls On Every Door" and "Enduring Oceans" by Thierry Amar
Recorded alone in the jam space, produced alone in bed
Jim’s drums flew in from Melbourne, Thierry’s bass at Hotel2Tango
Mixed by life-saver Radwan Ghazi Moumneh
Mastered by gentle-man Jesse Osborne-Lanthier
Montreal violinist/composer. Solo work direct from the heart.
Grew out of Thee Silver Mt Zion,
Black Ox Orkestar... & Carla Bozulich, Vic Chesnutt, Big†Brave, Oiseaux Tempete, Jem Cohen/Gravity Hill, and also, more.
Does anyone have a source/link to a translation of the Yiddish (and other) lyrics? Love the atmosphere and musicianship on this album, yet I'm confident I would enjoy it more if I could understand the words. Thanks in advance! thegreatgrackle
The first release on Cacophonous Revival, from experimentalist Samuel Goff, uses avant-garde approaches to get at personal narratives. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 4, 2020
On “Spirit Breeze,” Dylan Gilbert starts from folk roots, but gradually adorns his songs with rich textural elements. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 19, 2022
Serious drone pop classic in waiting here. That it was built on an SK1 makes it just more beautiful and will set the synth gear heads spinning. Super deep, super detailed flickering pop feedback. Reminds me of the 1st album by Surface of the Earth. Another masterpiece created on limited gear. Think I just found the album of 2022. Congratulations x AB