Akira Rabelais - Spellewauerynsherde (2004)

Spellbinding sounds from American composer Akira Rabelais. Composed entirely of vocals that Rabelais sourced from a tape of Icelandic laments, then stretched, layered, and generally obfuscated until they assumed their true form as ghosts, wailing their grief from across the river Styx. Listening to this record feels like a visitation from the divine, or the immortal, or the damned. A true masterwork.

Track listing:

1. 1382 Wyclif Gen. II. 7 And Spiride in to the Face of Hym an Entre of Breth of Lijf.

2. 1390 Gower Conf. II. 20 I Can Noght Thanne Unethes Spelle That I Wende Altherbest Have Rad.

3. 1440 Promp. Parv. 518/2 Wawyn, or Waueryn, yn a Myry Totyr, Oscillo.

4. 1483 Caxton Golden Leg. 208 B/2 He Put Not Away the Wodenes of His Flessh with a Sherde or Shelle.

5. 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 125 Within Which Draw an Other Circle, a Finger Bredth Distant.

6. (Gorgeous Curves Lovely Fragments Labyrinthed on Occasions Entwined Charms, a Few Stories at Any Longer Sworn to Gathered from a Guileless Angel and the Hilt Edges of Old Hearts, If They Do in the Guilt of Deep Despondency.)

7. 1671 Milton Samson 1122 Add Thy Spear, a Weavers Beam, and Seven-Times-Folded Shield.

A cadence of vanishing

You should also listen to:

Asunta - Landscapes (1996)

Alan Lamb - Original Masters: Night Passage (1998)