Clarissa Connelly - World of Work (2024) LP

With her third album, The Voyager (2020), Clarissa Connelly set lyrics inspired by a two-week walking tour of ancient, sacred sites in Denmark (where she is based) within arrangements of orchestral, electronic, and band instruments, with synthesizers playing a conspicuous role. After a period that included winning the Hyundai Nordic Music Prize for The Voyager, touring with Jenny Hval, singing in Laurie Anderson's choir, and premiering her own choral piece (Canons), she returns to the mythic and historical on the follow-up, World of Work. A difference, however, is that it finds her tilting the balance toward more acoustic, piano-based arrangements without eliminating any of her options. (Connelly is featured alongside a part-cartoon piano on the cover art.) With cited influences spanning 12th century composer Hildegard von Bingen, 16th century religious reformer Teresa of Avila, and 20th century philosopher Georges Bataille, among others, World of Work opens with "Into This, Called Loneliness." It begins with dramatically spaced, unison attacks of piano, bass drum, and cymbal before launching into a wispy, Joni Mitchell-esque piano song, albeit one featuring Connelly's uniquely angular, angelic vocals. The track gradually adds horns, often unidentifiable electric instruments, and overdubbed backing vocals, including whispers, while remaining eerily hushed. World of Work continues to establish a journey of its own with a second track, "The Bell Tower," that consists only of nearly two minutes of echoing, hard-heeled footsteps and clanging bells. Some of the other tracks here include highlight "Life of the Forbidden," with its accented dynamics, arpeggiated guitar, and occasional fuzzier guitar tones, the Celtic- and Renaissance-styled, lute-accompanied vocal piece "Wee Rosebud" (a re-interpretation of a 16-century lament), and synth-injected psych-folk entry "Tenderfoot." With its widely divergent stylistic reference points, World of Work has an otherworldly quality that's otherwise hard to quantify, even before considering its erudite thematic inspirations (the poetry of William Blake is another touchpoint). Adding catharsis to the mix, it closes with the nearly seven-minute "S.O.S. Song of the Sword," which, after meandering passages of flute and piano, layered vocals, and trippy atmospheric effects, goes out on a big rock jam -- and, finally, a piano triad.