Juraj Kojš
People: A Love Letter to Humanity
Featuring Jennifer Beattie, voice
Anticausal Systems. October 15, 2020.
Now available on Bandcamp.
Artburst Miami wrote about the album.
The horrific assault on humanity at the Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris in November 2015 brought out the realization that no public space is immune to acts of violence and desperation. The innocence of our music making was severely disrupted. That fall, I dreamt off a song that would remind us of love beating deeply beneath our daily realities. The dream eventually manifested into the musical contours of the People Song.
In connection with the long-time collaborator Jennifer Beattie, the multidimensional vocal phenomenon, the music emerged as a shared experience: one’s joy and suffering is everybody’s joy and suffering. Urging us to revitalize our sense of humanity, Jennifer sings to us in the People Song, “when you feel you are down, when you feel you are out, you are not alone at any time. When you feel you can’t fly, when you want to say good-bye, sing along with me it takes all people.”
Inspired by the concept albums of The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa, the People Song’s structural elements (drums, bass, pad, lead and voice) become a metaphor representing different individuals synchronized into a river of humanity. Musical materials from these component layers were dissected and then molded into independent tracks, highlighting each layer’s unique character. Their individual personae speak distinct musical languages from experimental to pop, ambient, glitch, drum’n’bass and house, always remaining in an open, exploratory zone. The musical nation of humanity emerged.
Segments from interviews with Dorothy Hindman, Clotilde Luce and Betzaida Ferrer on the topic of humanity form a through line, interspersing the musical tracks. A spoken presentation of the People Song’s lyrics and a group chanting of the word ‘people’ in 70 languages from around the globe reaffirms our joint desire to reconnect. The musical materials reunite one more time in the house People Song Remix, a collaboration with Milan Kojš.
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