(Indie Pop/Experimental/Hip-Hop/Singer-Songwriter) VA - Plague Songs - 2006, MP3, 320 kbps

Featuring contributions from Scott Walker, Rufus Wainright, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields), Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap, Plague Songs is released by 4AD on Monday October 2nd in the UK.
This fascinating, unsettling and unique project comes down to one simple idea : a collection of songs based on the ten Biblical plagues that take place in the Book of Exodus.
A simple idea, but a complicated story - these songs were originally commissioned by a British arts organisation called Artangel as part of The Margate Exodus, a day of live events and a film directed by Penny Woolcock. Exodus Day took place on 30 September 2006 transforming the seaside town of Margate in Kent into the setting for a contemporary re-telling of the Book Of Exodus. The day of live events higlighted dramatic moments in the film realised as a public event which included Pharoah Mann's victory election speech and the burning of Antony Gormley's Waste Man. In the evening a concert of Plague Songs inspired by those on this CD was performed in Margate's Winter Gardens by talented local singers and musicians.
The 4AD release gathers together the 10 original recordings, presented in Biblical plague order. It moves from the scattershot, street-level drama of Klashnekoff's "Blood" through to the tender lament for a real-life "Death Of The Firstborn" written by Rufus Wainwright. On the way, there's the sublime hover of Brian Eno & Robert Wyatt's "Flies", the cracked, surreal sparseness of The Tiger Lillies "Hailstones", and Laurie Anderson's grave, shadowy meditation on the Death Of Livestock. Imogen Heap's "Glittering Clouds" is a soaring pop song driven along by locust samples, while Scott Walker's "Darkness" (what else ?) is simply astonishing - a driven and almost completely a capella call-and-response which will raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
All ten tracks are exclusive to this release; and despite their various soundworlds and approaches they form a surprisingly coherent and convincing whole.