Published
Mon, May 10, 2021, 16:10
- Out in October through Accidental Records, the LP features eight singers and six musicians.
Matthew Herbert has a new album on the way this autumn.
Titled after the genus of the housefly, Musca is the third installment in the UK composer's domestic house series, which had previously been on hiatus since the release of his 2001 classic, Bodily Functions. Scheduled to arrive via Accidental Records on October 22nd, the full-length stretches out over fourteen tracks that fuse jazz-tinged house with a variety of field recordings.
The album was recorded in the midst of last year's lockdown in the UK and consequently brings on eight singers that Herbert has never worked with nor met before—including the likes of Bianca Rose, Yakoto Kieck and Verushka Grebenar-George.
"Like presumably many other albums made during the last year, Musca reflects on navigating the challenges and joys of our most intimate relationships while the world is in turmoil," says Herbert. "Not just with Covid-19, but with the rise in state and political violence, Facebook-friendly fascism, white supremacy and a climate in crisis."
He adds: "The week last year, when I wrote most of these songs, seems like another era altogether. I have no idea how they will sound a year later now that the context has changed so markedly. The optimist in me wants to leap forwards, vaccinated into the sunshine brandishing the NHS logo, but the realist in me is aghast at the wave of death unleashed upon this country by an incompetent and corrupt government."
The forthcoming album comes after last month's premiere of Herbert's documentary, A Symphony Of Noise, at Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. In 2019, Herbert released The State Between Us LP, which saw him work with over 1000 musicians and writers in the wake of Brexit, for an album composed of field recordings taken across the UK.
Listen to "The Way" featuring Y'akoto.
Tracklist
01. Unrestorable
02. Hypnotized
03. Be Young
04. Slip
05. Let Me Sleep
06. Tell Me A Secret
08. The Impossible
09. Gold Dust
10. Chain Reaction
11. The Way
12. Fantasy
13. The Horror
14. Two Doors
Accidental Records will release Musca on October 22nd, 2021.
