The new Mind Over Mirrors album is out today! After nearly three years of composing, rehearsing, building, and preparing, the spectacular Bellowing Sun is finally out in the world and on the wires. The piece will also receive its live premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago tonight and tomorrow, April 6–7; all performances but one are sold out (tickets here). Take a listen and a look below, stream it everywhere music is streamable, and please considering buying a copy from your favorite local shop or mailorder.
ORDER BELLOWING SUN:
$9.00 – $37.00
Or support via: Bandcamp (2xLP/CD/digital) | Other Options (2xLP/CD/DL/stream) | Local Record Stores
A twelve-faceted sonic inquiry into celestial cycles and the illuminating nature of darkness, Bellowing Sun is the majestic culmination of composer, harmoniumist, and synthesist Jaime Fennelly’s immersive explorations of the natural world’s sensory dimensions and the dialogues between musical traditions—acoustic and electronic, vernacular and avant-garde. Commissioned for its world premiere performance by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the work developed over the course of nearly three years, gradually accreting into a rapturous, prismatic seventy-three minute composition for a group comprised of Fennelly (Oberheim SEMs, OB-6 synthesizer, and Indian harmonium) and fellow veteran Chicago musicians Janet Beveridge Bean (Freakwater, Eleventh Dream Day: lead vocals, zither, percussion); Jim Becker (Iron and Wine, Califone: fiddle, vocals); and Jon Mueller (Death Blues, Volcano Choir: drums, vocals).
As Fennelly was writing the music that comprises Bellowing Sun, he was also designing and building a magnificent zoetrope, covered in abstracted images of the natural world, which appears on the cover of the album. This spinning light sculpture will be the centerpiece of the live production of Bellowing Sun. The zoetrope was created in collaboration with visual artists Timothy Breen, Eliot Irwin, and lighting designer Keith Parham. The production was commissioned by the MCA.
Watch the video for “Matchstick Grip” (directed by Julia Dratel):
LISTEN TO BELLOWING SUN
“In composing Bellowing Sun, Fennelly focused on rhythm more than ever. On “Matchstick Grip” that tactic pays continual dividends, injecting blood into his oxygen-rich music.” – NPR Music on “Matchstick Grip”
“8/10. An extended kosmische treat… rhapsodic. Two generations of experimental Chicago converge in this album of shimmering long-form grooves.” – Uncut
“An atmospheric groove that somehow sounds both intergalactic and medieval. Pulsating strings, shifting drum beats, and a harmonium play about the synth soundscape. The song beams and flickers, inspired by the growing impact of artificial light on living beings.” – Stereogum on “Zeitgebers”
“Bellowing Sun manages to touch on fascinating iterations of drone music, presenting a wildly diverse landscape of tracks that are both individualistic and work in lock-step to present a cohesive whole.” – Noisey
“A richly textured opus, which totally eclipses every previous Mind Over Mirrors effort. I’m still grappling with the album’s ambitious sprawl, which weaves together various threads Fennelly has followed over the years—new age, Indian classical music, drone, Krautrock, minimalism—into a spectacular, cohesive whole that envelops the listener in color and rhythm. Exquisitely crafted, meditative music.” – Chicago Reader
“Kosmische masters.” – Uproxx
Watch a video interview with Fennelly produced by MCA Chicago:
Use coupon code SUN during checkout for 20% off Mind Over Mirrors‘ previous album Undying Color.
