Trixie Whitley feat. Emily Wells, Topu Lyo & Stuart Bogie
Trixie Whitley stelt ‘Lacuna re-imagined’ voor. Ze herwerkte zes tracks van haar album ‘Lacuna’ uit 2019. Ze nodigde drie getalenteerde muzikanten uit in haar homestudio in Brooklyn om de nieuwe versies van strijkers en blazersarrangementen te voorzien. Multi instrumentalist Stuart Bogie (werkte eerder samen met Arcade Fire, David Byrne en Run The Jewels) nam de blazers voor zijn rekening, Emily Wells en Topu Lyo de strijkers.
De EP ‘Lacuna re-imagined’ verschijnt op 13 november, volgende week komt een eerste track uit op Unday Records. Alle opbrengsten van de EP gaan naar het Callen-Lorde ziekenhuis in New York, dat bekend staat om zijn werk voor de LGBTQ gemeenschap en voor minderheden. Trixie doet zelf het verhaal in onderstaande brief.
A letter from Trixie
For this Lacuna re-imagined project I decided to commit to just a few key ingredients, stripping the production away in service of finding out what I was left to work with. I committed to the following: all tracks had to be based on a full live one take recorded in my kitchen, with no edits made to the take. Leaving room for all the raw imperfections, I have a general rule of 3 takes for any recorded live performance, and I willfully chose to perform the bulk of these without a click. On two of the six tracks I did decide to use analog drum machines, going back to another part of my roots in writing and playing.
I thought to myself that this process could either turn into a complete mess or that there would be enough room for new discoveries to be made, in service of hearing the music in a different light and envisioning new possibilities for future endeavors. After the solo kitchen live takes were tracked, the amazing musician/composer Emily Wells and her accompanist Topu Lyu on cello joined in arranging the strings at my home studio.
During Lacuna Re-imagined it instantly became clear how I was ready to deal with the next chapter of my own personal healing, facing things I had previously not been able to… During those three days that Emily and Topu came to my place to track the strings, Topu asked if I had watched the documentary “How to survive a plague” and mentioned that the score was done by Stuart Bogie. Funny enough, over the last years Stuart had become a dear friend and coincidentally also my neighbor. Suddenly the project became full circle once Stuart joined and added the horns & woodwinds to the live takes, breathing new life into the music together with Emily and Topu’s string arrangements.
This year marks the 15th year since my father passed away. He was 45 at the time and would have turned 60 this year. Finishing up this Lacuna Re-imagined project during COVID had turned into a personal reckoning with my own grief and the taboo that was upheld within my own family. As raw as these recordings are, I’m so happy to be able to share them with anyone willing to experience them. I put so much love into them and for my father’s birthday, I have partnered with the Callen-Lorde clinic in NYC, which helped both him and I, while he was still alive. They continue to do really important work for vulnerable minority groups in the city. Any profits made from these recordings and the upcoming live event will go directly to their clinic and activism work.