Following up on last year’s Mother (one of our Best Albums of 2018), Xylouris White, a collaboration between Australian drum legend Jim White and Cretan lutenist George Xylouris, have announced the release of their fourth album The Sisypheans which also marks their Drag City debut (out on November 8th).
The announcement came with a video, directed by Jem Cohen, for lead-single ‘Tree Song’ which is available now.
In ‘Tree Song’ Nature calls to the Sisypheans
She calls:
‘Don’t go away, stay with me
My three branched basil tree
My short bushy bitter-orange tree’
…what shouldn’t be overlooked is the overwhelming and unexpected emotional impact it carries. Mother is that rare thing: experimental music with a huge heart. Thomas Blake, Folk Radio UK
The album takes its name from Greek mythology – Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (Corinth) who was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down when it nears the top, repeating this action for eternity. He is depicted on the cover of the album in an embroidery by Elsa Hansen Oldham, carrying the rock. Jim White talks below about how George found a parallel to this story to his own music and the popular Cretan song “Proto Hanoti”.
Jim on The Sisypheans:
“As George Xylouris and I traveled around these last five years, we found ourselves talking about Sisyphus. George had a theory about Sisyphus, condemned to climb that hill with that rock forever. George saw him carrying the rock in different ways, in his left hand, behind his back, pushing it with his head while crawling and noticing each journey the seasons changing, the grass and the insects. The meaning was clear and for George it fit with playing the popular Cretan song “Proto Hanoti” many turns each day for his life and discovering it new each time…. I found it fit in with a long held set of thoughts I’d had, that if one concentrated activity and thought enough on one thing it would expand and be a whole world. It sounded like the same idea and also with the idea of first principles, for it to be new each time: that is our job as musicians. We would talk about this as we traveled playing music. One day a waitress heard us talking, and she asked if we knew the Camus essay about Sisyphus. We didn’t, but I got it in English and then we found it in Greek and it fit too. When we were playing in Louisville and working on Black Peak, we stayed at a house and saw the artwork you see on the cover, by Elsa Hansen Oldham … We’d finished the circular trilogy of Goats, Black Peak and Mother and we found ourselves making The Sisypheans. What we do leads us to who we are, the Sisypheans.”
What a great journey this is turning out to be as this duo continues to explore their connection to both the music and each other, long may it continue.
The Sisypheans is released on November 8th
Pre-Order The Sisypheans via Drag City