[Cover photo credit to Kirsten McTernan]
Paraorchestra, with Brett Anderson and Charles Hazlewood, have announced Death Songbook, a collaborative 12-track album featuring original compositions and re-imagining songs exploring “love, loss and transcendence” by artists including, Echo & The Bunnymen, Mercury Rev, Japan, Black, Depeche Mode, Skeeter Davis, Jacques Brel and Suede.
The album includes special guest performances by collaborators Nadine Shah, Gwenno, Seb Rochford (Sons of Kemet), Adrian Utley (Portishead) and is due for release on April 19, 2024 via BMG.
During the pandemic, Charles Hazlewood (founder and Artistic Director of Paraorchestra) was struck by the idea of an album of “very delicate re-imaginings” of some of the most “morbidly beautiful and poignantly sombre songs,” called Death Songbook. Charles discussed the idea with friend Brett Anderson of Suede, who found it a concept close to his heart, agreeing to help curate and sing across the album’s 12 songs.
Charles Hazlewood says:
The only rule is that all the songs have to have a relationship to death or the death of love.
Brett Anderson brings vocal performances to the Paraorchestra’s re-imaginings. Articulated by composer/orchestrator Charlotte Harding, each composition focuses on “twisting and reconstructing” the songs.
The album’s opening track, Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” is out now.
Speaking about the project Charles Hazlewood said:
So much of the greatest art, certainly from my point of view, is intrinsically melancholic. Music which is about death, or the death of love, about loss, about anxiety, there’s a transcendence in that music. My go to, whether I’m feeling happy or sad or somewhere in between, will be melancholy music because that’s where the catharsis is, that’s where art is most resonant.
Suede’s Brett Anderson says:
The Death Songbook was an idea Charles came up with during the bleak days of lockdown. As soon as he suggested it, I was sold. I loved the idea of curating a suite of songs about loss and sadness and regret. I’ve always found happy songs depressing, it’s been the murkier themes that have somehow sounded more joyous to me. Songs about doubt and fear and grief confront feelings we all struggle with, so to know that we are not alone in that fight can be quietly life-affirming.
Paraorchestra recorded the majority of the Death Songbook album live in an afternoon at the peak of lockdown, socially distanced across Europe’s largest opera stage, the Donald Gordon Theatre at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. The project returned to the Wales Millennium Centre for a live performance in October 2022, where they recorded three additional songs.
Two special live performances will accompany the album’s release, firstly at London’s Roundhouse on the 24th of April, followed by a show at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, home of Factory International on the 26th of April. Remaining tickets are available here.
Paraorchestra is the world’s only ensemble consisting of both professional disabled and non-disabled musicians playing a mix of traditional orchestral, acoustic, and electronic instruments and using assistive technology.
Track Listing
1. The Killing Moon
(Composers: Ian McCulloch, Les Pattinson, Will Sergeant and Pete de Freitas)
2. Unsung
(Composers: Brett Anderson, Leo Abrahams, Leopold Ross, Seb Rochford)
3. Holes (feat. Nadine Shah)
(Composers: David Fridmann, Adam Synder, Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper)
4. Nightporter
(Composer: David Sylvian)
5. She Still Leads Me On – LIVE
(Composers: Brett Anderson and Richard Oakes)
6. Wonderful Life
(Composer: Colin Vearncombe)
7. The Next Life
(Composers: Bernard Butler, Brett Anderson)
8. He’s Dead
(Composers: Bernard Butler, Brett Anderson)
9. Enjoy The Silence (feat. Gwenno) – LIVE
(Composer: Martin L Gore)
10. The End Of The World (feat. Nadine Shah)
(Composer: Sylvia Dee and Arthur Kent)
11. My Death – LIVE
(Composer: Jacques Brel)
12. Brutal Lover – LIVE
(Composers: Brett Anderson & Charles Hazlewood)
