Dark, hypnotic, dreamy and melodic. Dystopian baroque imagery for the darkest depths of winter on the new album from lutenist Jozef van Wissem
Released: 19th January 2024
Label: Incunabulum Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
Brooklyn-based, Maastricht-born composer and lutenist Jozef van Wissem is considered in numerous quarters to be amongst the world’s leading practitioners on his chosen instrument, the lute. He learned his craft under the guidance of famed early music purveyor and master lute-player, Patrick O’Brien, in New York, during the 1990s. By a rough count, The Night Dwells in the Day is his 22nd solo album in a recording career that started back in 2000 with his debut solo release, Retrograde: A Classical Deconstruction. Add the many collaborations he’s had with the likes of Jim Jarmusch, Tilda Simpson and Gary Lucas into the mix, and we’re talking about a discography that numbers around 40 releases.
Jozef’s work has been variously described as baroque, neo-classical, renaissance, or just plain strange and if the contents of The Night Dwells in the Day are anything at all to go by, then a blend of all of that does come somewhere close. But it’s the end product that matters and Jozef’s music is an intriguing combination of dark, hypnotic, dreamy and unfailingly melodic.
Of the album’s thought-provoking title, Jozef had this to say: “It has to do with darkness and light. The title can mean different things to people but sometimes people say that if I play happy pieces of music that it still sounds sad. So this is why I came up with that title.”
Jozef regularly flavours his lute musings with generous lacings of electronica and the drones and percussive taps he employs lend an often-unsettling dystopian edge to his melodies – an impression that truly hits home on the occasions that his strident vocals and lyrical thoughts are added to the mixture.
Each of the seven pieces that comprise The Night Dwells in the Day is blessed with a lengthy, descriptive title that helps the listener prepare for the imagery to come – as opening track, The Devil is a Fair Angel and the Serpent a Subtle Beast, amply demonstrates. The electronic taps and rattles of the rhythm track contrast sharply with Jozef’s gently-picked lute, the recurring theme of which engages the listener with its hypnotic intensity.
Featuring Irish experimental folk musician, Hillary Woods, on vocals, The Call of the Deathbird is, perhaps, the centrepiece of the entire album. Despite clocking in at over nine minutes, it’s the album’s lead single and, if you agree with me that The Devil is a Fair Angel… is hypnotic, then this one is doubly so. Jozef and Hillary share the vocals – his are deliberately discomfiting; hers, distant and otherworldly. Electronic drones add to the unsettling impact of the tune whilst, all the while, Jozef picks out a soothing, gentle, melody on his lute. And, when Jozef reverts to spoken word vocals, things get seriously ghostly and weird. It’s a track that needs to be heard.
The Call of the Deathbird is the first track that Jozef wrote for the album, when he was isolated in Warsaw during lockdown. Jozef recalls that period of the song’s gestation: “That song became something completely different after we made a video for it. [the video was shot in Warsaw’s Soviet Mausoleum where the ashes of 20,000 Soviet soldiers lie]. Whenever I leave Warsaw there is this beautiful open space that I see and I wanted to make a video there. It has this aesthetic that is symmetric, eerie and militant. But it had nothing to do with this war, this was before Ukraine. In our film, the silence of the lute replaces the violent rifle.
Jozef’s talent for combing the baroque and the futuristic, with soft, repetitive lute passages supplemented – but never dominated – by electronic drones and swirls is particularly evident on both With Our Hands Over Our Hearts to Raise and the almost pastoral Slowly the Rays of Daylight Fade. In both cases, the electronics offer a dark shadow and, in both cases, it’s the lute melody that hold’s the listener’s attention.
Good and evil are seemingly brought face-to-face for In Exile Here We Wander. Jozef’s strummed lute sounds deep and rich when compared to the plucked melodies of the album’s other tracks; the tune is classic baroque, but there’s a growing sinister aspect that makes you feel that, wherever you might try hiding, someone not very pleasant will find you and do something extremely nasty to you when he does…
And that conflict of emotions is carried through to May the Bright Gate Welcome You, another tune that’s notable for its sweet-and-sour structure. Jozef’s lute passages have a thoroughly sunny disposition that is effectively darkened by the harsh electronic tones that soon emerge. Then, to end this remarkable album in the darkest of shades, Jozef delved into an old hymn book to retrieve the lyrics to the ominous The Day of the Lord. Jozef heralds Judgement Day with a “darkness and death” message that includes lines like “The world is turning to decay,” whilst pulsing, looping electronics seek to drench his serene lute in the sounds of Armageddon.
If you’re looking for an album to exercise your mind during the darkest depths of a cold winter, The Night That Dwells in the Day just might fit the bill for you.
Watch that atmospheric video to The Call of the Deathbird – the album’s lead single – here:
Jozef van Wissem: Official Website / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
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