French composer Colleen has shared details of a new album. The artist born Cécile Schott will share The Tunnel and the Clearing on May 21 through Thrill Jockey.
The seven-track The Tunnel and the Clearing follows 2017's A Flame My Love, a Frequency and is said to find Schott at "her most vulnerable and confident."
Schott began work on the LP in 2018 before extreme fatigue from a previously undiagnosed illness halted her work. The "months and years of treatment and adjustment" that followed would lead her to relocate to Barcelona, a move that was followed by pandemic lockdowns and the dissolution of a longtime partnership.
Reflection on these experiences led Schott to reimagine her compositional practice, leading to a set of seven songs that "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."
First single "Gazing at Taurus - Santa Eulalia," named for the patron saint of Barcelona can be heard below.
"In September 2019, on an exceptionally clear night, I was able to gaze at the Taurus constellation in the Barcelona night sky, observing the spectacular Pleiades for the first time in my life, 'spreading across and above the / Cathedral spire,'" Schott recalled. "I tried to repeat the experience a year later, but of course this time it felt totally different. Santa Eulalia is the patron saint of Barcelona and a statue of her stands atop the cathedral spire: I saw her everyday 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."
The Tunnel and the Clearing:
1. The Crossing
2. Revelation
3. Implosion-Explosion
4. The Tunnel and the Clearing
5. Gazing at Taurus - Santa Eulalia
6. Gazing at Taurus - Night Sky Rumba
7. Hidden in the Current
Pre-order The Tunnel and the Clearing.
The seven-track The Tunnel and the Clearing follows 2017's A Flame My Love, a Frequency and is said to find Schott at "her most vulnerable and confident."
Schott began work on the LP in 2018 before extreme fatigue from a previously undiagnosed illness halted her work. The "months and years of treatment and adjustment" that followed would lead her to relocate to Barcelona, a move that was followed by pandemic lockdowns and the dissolution of a longtime partnership.
Reflection on these experiences led Schott to reimagine her compositional practice, leading to a set of seven songs that "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."
First single "Gazing at Taurus - Santa Eulalia," named for the patron saint of Barcelona can be heard below.
"In September 2019, on an exceptionally clear night, I was able to gaze at the Taurus constellation in the Barcelona night sky, observing the spectacular Pleiades for the first time in my life, 'spreading across and above the / Cathedral spire,'" Schott recalled. "I tried to repeat the experience a year later, but of course this time it felt totally different. Santa Eulalia is the patron saint of Barcelona and a statue of her stands atop the cathedral spire: I saw her everyday 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."
The Tunnel and the Clearing:
1. The Crossing
2. Revelation
3. Implosion-Explosion
4. The Tunnel and the Clearing
5. Gazing at Taurus - Santa Eulalia
6. Gazing at Taurus - Night Sky Rumba
7. Hidden in the Current
Pre-order The Tunnel and the Clearing.
