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Album
Lamentations
Archy and Mehitabel →142 listeners682 plays
henry purcellnote-worthyfolkacousticpiano
about this album
Lamentations is the debut EP from Archy & Mehitabel, a duo comprised of Alexander Horwitz (keyboards, producer) and Lee Waters (vocals, lyricist). The album is their first studio album after several years of live recordings, rehearsal tapings, and experimental compositions that were limited in release to a small circle of fans and other musicians. In Lamentations, influences of Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and the extended vocal techniques of Bjork Gudminsdottir and Meredith Monk are eminently clear. But some songs go further than simple influence. The tracks Integration and Lament both include direct quotations from classical composers of the Baroque period. Integration includes an outro based on Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D while Lament's lyrics and vocal melody are quoted from Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas...specifically the aria "Dido's Lament." This is probably thanks to Lee Waters' and Alexander Horwitz's mutual love of classical music and the fact that Alexander is a classically trained pianist and harpsichordist. Lamentations blends all of these influences and quotes together into a complex, 16-minute arc. Balancing the complexities of the music technically (many of the piano and vocal lines include virtuosic displays of technique), the album's orchestration is limited to only voice and piano with limited layering of backing vocals and no other accompaniment whatsoever. A similarly "clean and simple" approach was taken in the production with limited effect
