Indie darlings Matthew E. White and Lonnie Holley have announced their new collaborative album Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection. It’s out April 9th, and the duo has shared a preview in lead single, “This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14”.
At first blush, the 38-year-old founder of Spacebomb Records and the 70-year-old former sculptor may seem like unlikely collaborators. White and Holley first linked up in 2019, when the former backed the latter at a concert in Virginia. In a statement, White called it, “One of the best shows I’ll ever do, so dialed in.”
Afterwards, White thought about a set of recordings he had made in November 2018 and then set aside. He had been working with a septet on a series of guided improvisations, and while the results were bold and intriguing, he didn’t know how it fit into the album he’d been writing. After that same septet supported Holley at a show in Durham, North Carolina, White played him that music. Holley consulted a notebook full of lyrical ideas, and over the course of four hours wrote and sang an album’s worth of songs. Except for a few edits and overdubs, all of Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection was completed that day. As White said, “Lonnie channels this music to articulate sensitive and powerful truth that is a formidable commentary on modern society.”
The new single “This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14” offers an idea of how these worlds come together. The song begins with jazzy percussion and a patient, insistent bass. As electric guitars build to a frenzy, Holley unleashes a string of philosophical reflections intercut with ad libs and melodic “ahs!” He’s constantly interrupting himself, so that a heady line like, “In the age of technology/ Human thoughts all around/ Human thoughts up and down/ Calculating my emotion/ Human thoughts all around, around,” is cut up by wordless noises, as if his brain and heart are in conversation together. Check it out after the jump.
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Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection arrives April 9th through Spacebomb and Jagjaguwar, and pre-orders are ongoing. Peruse the artwork and tracklist below.
Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection Artwork:
Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection Tracklist:
01. This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14
02. Broken Mirror (A Selfie Reflection)/Compostion 9
03. I Cried Space Dust/Composition 12
04. I’m Not Tripping/Composition 8
05. Get Up! Come Walk with Me/Composition 7
