Thrill Jockey have announced that Colleen, artist and composer Cécile Schott, will release her new album The Tunnel and the Clearing on May 21st, 2021. She began work on the album in 2018 only to be met with extreme fatigue from a previously undiagnosed illness that all but halted her work. The following months and years of treatment and adjustment eventually led to relocating to a new home and studio in Barcelona, which was soon followed by lockdowns and ultimately the dissolution of her longtime partnership.
The impact of deep reflecting on these cumulative experiences found Schott completely reimagining her compositional practices through her enduring gift for reinvention. Schott spent months in near-complete silence apart from composing and ruminating on her newfound perspective through her music. Says Schott, “Never before had I felt so profoundly the power that music has, through harmony, melody, rhythm and sound itself, to express the whole range of human emotions.” The resulting seven pieces investigate the complex, at times contradictory relationship between excitement and fear, anger and understanding, struggle and triumph, all focused on a reconstruction of the self.
It is the city of Barcelona from which Schott draws inspiration for the lead single “Gazing at Taurus – Santa Eulalia“, named after city’s co-patron saint. Schott explains:
“On an exceptionally clear night in my new home, I was able to gaze at the Taurus constellation, observing the spectacular Pleiades for the first time in my life. I tried to repeat the experience a year later, but of course this time felt totally different. Santa Eulalia is a statue that stands atop a cathedral spire nearby. I saw her every day from my window and greeted her on my daily walk, and she ended up becoming my own personal symbol of resilience in this troubled year.”
Santa Eulalia is commemorated with statues and street names throughout Barcelona including a relief by Pedro Villar on Barcelona Cathedral which depicts her crucifixion. Legend has it that following her death a dove flew from her mouth and then a sudden snowstorm covered her body like a garment.
Pre-order Colleen’s The Tunnel and the Clearing:
http://www.thrilljockey.com/products/the-tunnel-and-the-clearing
Download the single via Bandcamp: https://colleencolleen.bandcamp.com/track/gazing-at-taurus-santa-eulalia
Photo Credit: Luis Torroja