Originally conceived as a touring project, its last performance was in Brisbane, Australia before COVID-19 changed the world as we know it. Described by The Sunday Times as “a beautiful frenzy of movement”, it fuses theatre, music, dance, architectural design, and visuals and brings to life a series of fantastical places and disparate worlds, centered on the tense relationship between Kublai Khan, the volatile head of a vast empire, and explorer Marco Polo. Premiering to a sell-out audience in July 2019 at the Manchester International Festival, the duo was commissioned by Warner’s 59 Productions to score the music for the 90-minute multimedia theatrical stage show, adapted from Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel, ‘Invisible Cities’. Released on their own Artificial Pinearch Manufacturing label, the album comes as part of an agreement with A Winged Victory for the Sullen’s current label, Ninja Tune. ORDER: VINYL | CD | TAPE CASSETTE : bit.ly/3hQLdVVĪ Winged Victory for the Sullen, the collaboration between Adam Wiltzie & Dustin O'Halloran, release their 2021 album ‘Invisible Cities’, the stunning score to the critically acclaimed theatre production directed by London Olympics ceremony video designer Leo Warner. Sitting in a room, bus, park bench, office listening to a totally captivating piece of music that is part of a totally captivating body of music.NEW: AWVFTS X DAVY EVANS: LIMITED-EDITION PRINTS: /shop/ The swell is almost deafening, then it drops off and you are back where you were. This is the moment when you realise that you are an insignificant dot in the backwaters of the cosmos. Opening with billowing electronics, the sound grows from the speakers until it encompasses you. The vortex is a machine that has the ability to show anyone in it the infinity of creation and how insignificant you are in relation to it. The title is a reference to a joke in the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The album closes with ‘Total Perspective Vortex’. Even when the glitching noise is at its height, ‘There is One of Which You Never Speak’ still feels comfortable and embracing. What is remarkable is that you can still hear the graceful stings poking through the electronic cacophony. As ‘There Is One Of Which You Never Speak’ progresses these electronics are more pronounced when, during the final third, they become this fidgeting wall of static noise. After opening with an embracing swell of strings and tender piano, an undercurrent of subtle electronics starts to become, well, less subtle. The standout moment on the album takes place during ‘There Is One Of Which You Never Speak’. It embraces us with open arms, hinting at the sonic beauty we are about to experience whilst dousing us with dazzling melodies. ‘So That The City Can Begin To Exist’ kicks things off with a delicate piano refrain and synths that create gentle maelstroms. The show mixed theatre, music, dance, architectural design, and stunning visuals to bring to life the conversations in the book. It’s a rich read, which allows the music to be so varied and compelling. Polo’s responses are in the form of prose poetry and act as parables to life and human nature. Khan is asking Polo about cities in his ever-expanding empire that has, and will, never see. The book is a series of conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. The album is a collaboration with Leo Warner’s theatre production with is based on Italo Calvino’s classic novel Invisible Cities. This feeling comes across when listening to the ‘Invisible Cities’ by A Winged Victory For The Sullen. It might have been unfamiliar to us, but we understood its dynamics. As we flaneured about, avoiding tourist spots, we found a new appreciation for the city. Before we left one of our lectures told that that the best thing to do in a new city was meander at will and to get lost. When I was at college we went on a trip to Paris.
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