Get the latest gossip
Lyra Pramuk: Hymnal review – slime-toting composer’s dazzling and difficult devotional music
Inspired by the intricate webs of creeping slime mould, Pramuk’s fascinating ideas can get lost in a primordial soup of genres and textures
Lyra Pramuk: HymnalThe American artist’s astonishing 2020 album Fountain was made only with digital manipulations of her voice, and a continuing interest in the non- (or nearly) verbal runs through Hymnal: breathy, wheezing vocal samples scratch against heavily processed strings, harvested through collaborative sessions with Berlin’s Sonar Quartett. On early track Unchosen, a looping bow-stroke chimes alongside burbling vocalisations to mesmeric effect, and it is startling to hear fully articulated words finally emerge on single Meridian, as if Pramuk’s mass of sound has organically mastered speech. Complicated and dense, Hymnal demands deep listening – no bad thing – but its repetitive, jerking movements and myriad layers often become samey and numbing, with Pramuk’s fascinating ideas buried in the murk.
Or read this on The Guardian