THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Spells is the second instalment in The Inivisible Light song cycle, a trilogy of expansive, experimental albums from Grammy and Oscar-winner T Bone Burnett, top-shelf drummer-percussionist Jay Bellerose and longtime collaborator Keefus Ciancia.
The trilogy’s first instalment — The Invisible Light: Acoustic Space — was released in 2019 to critical praise. The New York Times raved: “Burnett speak-sings his way through free-associative songs that contain biblical allusions, echoes of the blues, tall tales, lovers’ plaints and warnings about disinformation, the cult of personality and the encroachments of technology” while Los Angeles Times describes, “It’s not a significant departure, thematically, for this lifelong seeker of larger truths.”
The Invisible Light is a fusion of trance, electronic, folk, tribal and global music. At the heart of this trilogy, it is an examination of technology and how it has advanced significantly throughout the course of the last century, with radio, film, television and the internet serving as central parts of our lives. Society has been subject to a programming pandemic which is causing us to lose our ability to differentiate fact from fiction. In acoustic space, people hear from every direction at once, the center is everywhere, and there is no border.
Joseph Henry ‘T Bone’ Burnett is a producer, musician and songwriter. He composed and produced the music for the critically acclaimed series True Detective, and his film work includes the five-time Grammy-winning soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Big Lebowski, Cold Mountain, The Hunger Games, Crazy Heart and Walk The Line, among others. He has collaborated with numerous artists including Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Roy Orbison, and won Album of the Year and Record of the Year Grammy Awards for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand.
Jay Bellerose is a percussionist best known for his live performance work. His drums and percussion credits include work with renowned artists such as Elton John, Leon Russell, Allen Toussaint, Ray LaMontagne, Gregg Allman, Regina Spektor, Willie Nelson, Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Henry and Loudon Wainwright III.
Artist, composer, producer and musician Keefus Ciancia has worked with a range of artists including Kimbra, Nikka Costa, Benji Hughes and Cassandra Wilson. Together with Jade Vincent he formed The Jade Vincent Experiment, an experimental film-noir band which led them to connect with Burnett after he heard them perform. Ciancia and Burnett’s relationship blossomed, the two collaborating on several projects including True Detective and The Coen Brothers’ The Ladykillers.
