Icelandic duo, Hugar, have another album coming on Sony Music Masterworks, the follow up to last year's very good, Varða. The upcoming The Vasulka Effect: Music for the Motion Picture comes out October 2nd, 2020, and it's a set of songs developed from the foundations of the score to the documentary centered on the pioneers of video art, Steina and Woody Vasulka.
A New Renaissance is the album's opening piece, and it comes with a beautiful visual from the band's recent livestream from the Nordic House Session Live in Reykjavík. It was directed by Hugar themselves, and it was inspired by the video art from the same film that the music accompanies, with director of photography, Blair Alexander Massie responsible for the camera work.
"We had a tour scheduled for this spring but luckily we were able to move all the shows to the fall," the band explain. "In the meantime, we felt the urge to give back to our fans who had been looking forward to the tour by doing a special online performance for everybody to experience. The performance took place in the esteemed cultural center The Nordic House in Reykjavík, designed by the world-renowned architect Alvar Aalto in the 1960s. We brought all our analogue gear to the space and asked our friend Blair to film the whole thing. We wanted the audience to feel even closer than in a regular concert setting. We are very proud of the result and happy to be able to share it with the world. The music video for A New Renaissance was taken form that performance."
A New Renaissance kicks off a twenty-song release in a fragile and exquisite way, in keeping with the elegance of their previous works. They describe: "The track is inspired by the creative energy surrounding The Kitchen gallery in New York, founded by Steina and Woody Vasulka in 1971 and has since been a continuous source of new art forms. The constant waves of creativity have been a platform for many emerging artists and we hope that these waves reach the listener through this song."
Spotify
Hugar Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
ZR