David August will release a new album in October.
VĪS, which is Latin for energy or force, is the Italian-German composer’s second album, following 2018’s D’Angelo. It’s the result of a lengthy process of self-discovery, collaboration, and research during which August took time out in and around Rome to write music and process ideas, using the pause to inhale books about language, quantum physics, movement, and Middle Eastern mysticism.
He began to see the record as a way for him to release his ego and separate the personal from the impersonal, letting an honest version of himself speak through the noise. “As much as this sounds like a rational process,” he admits, “it was based on intuition and channeling a feeling.”
He wrote the album’s 13 pieces to play like a linear storyline, tracking the development of culture from its illusory beginnings in Plato’s cave into the wider world and observing its progression and adaptation.
The son of a classical pianist, August slipped from the academic music world into an early career as a dance music DJ-producer before he felt his artistic outlook shifting considerably. He established the 99CHANTS label in 2018, and has since used it as an output for his collaborations with jazz-noise vocalist Cansu Tanrikulu and Carnatic singer Sushma Soma on last year’s Imaginary Landscapes compilation.
For more information on August, check out his XLR8R feature here.
Tracklisting
01. ÆRA
02. VAHA
03. RAI
04. CYLO
05. FLORA
06. Y’SAR
07. ANTRO
08. ELAH
09. ARCO
10. NADIR
11. ARIA
12. DANZA
13. LIBRA
VĪS LP is scheduled for October 6 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “ARCO” in full via the player below and pre-order here.
Photo: Filip Preis