Songs For The Dead

Description

After her captivating EP in collaboration with Iggy Pop in 2022 (The Dictator), Belgian composer and musician Catherine Graindorge returns with a radiant album. Over the years, Graindorge has worked with an incredible number of collaborators, including Iggy, Nick Cave, Hugo Race, and producer John Parish (PJ Harvey). But for Songs for the Dead, she wanted a tight-knit ensemble, so she called on her usual collaborators, Simon Ho on keyboards and bassist Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower, Lilium, Détroit), who both know her and her music very well. The album features instrumental and vocal songs about life, love, and death. Inspired by mythologies and elegies, from the Greeks to the Beats, and especially by a poem by Allen Ginsberg, "A Dream Record." Recorded here under the title "This Is a Dream," it explores the place where the veil between worlds becomes thin. The music she composed for the tracks explores beauty and loss, creating a floating and ethereal dialogue between music and voice that carries the listener forward. Songs for the Dead is a discreet epic, with plenty of shadow and light in the playing and compositions. The melodies unfold slowly, always lyrical, and the silences are as important as the notes.