Photo credit: Kris Dewitte
Today, amidst a European tour, Dutch lute player and composer Jozef Van Wissem shares a second track from his forthcoming album ‘The Night Dwells in the Day’, set for release on January 19th on Incunabulum Records.
Following the recent first single, "The Call of the Deathbird" featuring guest vocals from Hilary Woods (who will also join Van Wissem on tour next month), today he shares the album's foreboding instrumental opening track. On "The Devil is a Fair Angel and the Serpent a Subtle Beast" crisp rattling electronics buzz, emulating the serpent's hiss, against a backdrop of delicately plucked, pensively spiralling lute.
"The track grapples with the world as it moves on and all the dualism and dichotomies that follow" Van Wissem explains. "It combines darkness and light, happy and sad at the same time."
Listen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlBb7j_a-GE
Pre-order album: https://jozefvanwissem.bandcamp.com/track/the-devil-is-a-fair-angel-and-the-serpent-a-subtle-beast
“It's like a part of my body,” says Jozef Van Wissem of the relationship he has to his chosen instrument, the lute. “The complexity of it is what keeps me going because you can always find something new.”
The ability to constantly extract something different and explore fresh terrain is evident throughout Van Wissem’s sprawling back catalogue and up to his latest album, ‘The Night Dwells in the Day’. Over the years he’s released countless solo albums stretching into double figures, there’s been collaborations with Jim Jarmusch and Tilda Swinton, award-winning computer game soundtracks, along with award-winning film soundtracks, from Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive to Pierre Creton’s 2023 film A Prince.
Since studying the lute in New York with Patrick O'Brien in the 1990s, Van Wissem has gone on to create works equally as rooted in classical Renaissance and Baroque forms of lute music, as contemporary sounds spanning drones, electronics and field recordings. Throw in some of his formative influences from the no wave and industrial scenes, alongside a dedicated approach to minimalism and this has resulted in Van Wissem producing distinct and singular work whose sound is often a marriage of opposites; meditative and intense, forward thinking but with a sense of the arcane. The Quietus has called him “probably the most famous lutenist in the world”.
What Van Wissem manages to do so interestingly and eloquently on this album, and with much of his work, is merge rich musical traditions and history with a contemporary sense of exploration and experimentation. The Renaissance and Baroque lute music he studies and plays is so old it’s written on tablature notation of the time that few musicians understand and know how to play. While he also plucks images, song titles and lyrics from dusty old books to give them a recontextualised lease of life by being integrated into the present-day. “I like to go to markets and find old lyrics that nobody uses and that are not online,” he says. “It's like this forgotten world somewhere and that really interests me.”
‘The Night Dwells in the Day’ will be released on January 19th through Incunabulum records – pre-order here.
Jozef Van Wissem live dates:
Dec 2nd: THE BLACK LAB, LILLE
Dec 5th: SETMANA SANTA FESTIVAL, TOULOUSE
Dec 6th: CAVE 12, GENEVA*
Dec 7th: BRONSON, RAVENNA*
Dec 8th: TIPOTECA ITALIANA, CORNUDA*
Dec 9th: CIRCOLO DEV, BOLOGNA*
Dec 12th: ROTE SONNE, MUNICH*
Dec 13th: ARKAODA, BERLIN*
Dec 14th: TRAFO, JENA*
Dec 15th: HD, DRESDEN*
Dec 16th: JASSMINE, WARSAW*
Dec 17th: ST CATHARINE CHURCH, VILNIUS*
Dec 18th: VAGONU HALL, RIGA*
Dec 19th: KINO SOPRUS, TALINN*
* with support from Hilary Woods
‘The Night Dwells in the Day’ track list:
1. The Devil is a Fair Angel and the Serpent a Subtle Beast
2. The Call of the Deathbird - official video
3. With Our Hands Our Hearts To Raise
4. In Exile Here We Wander
5. Slowly The Rays of Daylight Fade
6. May The Bright Gate Welcome You
7. The Day of the Lord
‘The Night Dwells in the Day’ artwork:
Links:
https://www.jozefvanwissem.com/
https://jozefvanwissem.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jozefvanwissem/
https://www.youtube.com/user/jozefboys
http://www.incunabulumrecords.com/ |
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