Daniel Blumberg

Announces New Album

DANIEL BLUMBERG ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM GUT

OUT 26 MAY 2023 ON MUTE

WATCH BRADY CORBET DIRECTED VIDEO FOR CHEERUP

GUT LIVE PERFORMANCES INCLUDE REWIRE & LES NUITS BOTANIQUES FESTIVALS & ICA, LONDON

Daniel Blumberg announces the release of his third solo studio album, GUT. The album, which follows his Ivor Novello winning score for the film The World To Come, will be released on Mute on vinyl, CD and download on 26 May 2023: https://ffm.link/boiledegg_gut

Watch the Brady Corbet directed video for ‘CHEERUP’ – an excerpt from the director’s forthcoming film shot to the entire album – here:

GUT is an unflinchingly raw and personal album, a radical departure from Blumberg’s previous work and one that firmly establishes him in a unique space within experimental music practice. It makes oblique reference to the intestinal disease Blumberg has suffered in the last few years, but more than that, it is an elemental and corporeal suite of six inter-connected songs that trace a body stripped back and rebuilt: renderings of pain, frustration and fatigue in ballads made sinew and bone; an extraordinary vocal that reaches beyond the body to escape the malfunctions of the flesh; and a musical accompaniment that draws breath and rhythm in unruly and original forms.

This sense of impulse and improvisation saturates the album from its literal subject matter all the way through to its recording strategies which have a directness that situates the album in a timeless space, its song forms authentically frank and immediate. “When the songs came together, I played it as a continuous piece,” he says, recording the majority of the half hour long album in one uninterrupted vocal take, adding few overdubs and manipulation alongside the bold and spare instrumentation that includes bass harmonica, Steinberger ebass, synthesiser and electronic drums. The bass harmonica, in particular, was the instrument which “glued it all together, in this manifestation of breath, and the bass – it is the guts of the record”. 

The video for ‘CHEERUP’ is taken from a forthcoming album length film directed by Brady Corbet (Childhood of a Leader, Vox Lux). “The film was shot on 16mm black and white film; a series of motion picture portraits in which we set out to capture Blumberg’s very essence”, says Corbet.  “I was struck by the album’s theme: the stomach. The stomach is a topic which is as off-limits as speaking frankly about mortality in a social setting. As stomach trouble relates to the end of a relationship, the death of the ego, and acceptance of what it means to be human, it’s a definitive offering.” Shot in a disused industrial complex in New York, the film renders Blumberg naked and vulnerable in high contrast whites and deep black. It displays the tensions of the mind defeated by the body: strained sinews rendered in stark celluloid, direct and uncompromising in its examining gaze. 

Blumberg recently premiered the live performance of GUT at CTM Festival (Berlin), with further performances scheduled for Rewire Festival (The Hague), Les Nuits Botaniques (Brussels), Teatro Basilica (Rome) and ICA (London).

Pre-order GUT: https://ffm.link/boiledegg_gut

GUT TRACKLISTING

1. BONE

2. CHEERUP

3. HOLDBACK

4. BODY

5. KNOCK

6. GUT

DANIEL BLUMBERG PRESENTS GUT

8 April – Rewire Festival, The Hague (NL)
27 April – Les Nuits Botaniques, Brussels (BE)
17 May – Teatro Basilica, Rome (IT)
23 May – ICA, London (UK)

http://boiledegg.org/

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