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Wrekmeister Harmonies
Photo of J.R. Robinson by Katie Hovland
Meeting in a quiet diner in the heart of Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood was the perfect setup for an interview with J.R. Robinson. It’s here that the sound composer behind the experimental drone project known as Wrekmeister Harmonies has lived and worked for a number of years, often flitting under the radar and spending a lot of late nights creating the epically winding and dramatic opuses that have become his trademark.
His latest, and arguably best, is called “Night Of Your Ascension,” comprised of the 30-plus-minute title track and another shorter piece, “Run Priest Run,” that are respectively inspired by the lives of 16th century musician and murderer Don Carlo Gesualdo and disgraced priest Father John Geoghan, one of the most significant perpetrators in the sex abuse scandals that plagued the Catholic Church the last two decades. Musically, both characteristically feature a combination of peaceful choirs and graceful string sections that quickly degrade into guttural howls, crashing cymbals and assaultive guitars. An assembly of 30 musicians collectively helped Robinson bring the album to life—a list that includes members of Einstürzende Neubauten, The Body, Indian, Bloodiest, Cave and Come, as well as harpist Mary Lattimore and indie folk singer Marissa Nadler.
There’s reason why folks like these—and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor who will be featured in an upcoming project as he explains below—flock to Robinson. He’s a musician’s musician, a guy who scouts for talent at choral concerts, blurs the line between classical symphonies and contemporary metal and records in crematoriums for effect. Yet he’s also multilateral, a visual thinker able to see the full picture (with short films that often accompany live performances) and a storyteller who makes you understand the narrative woven into his score without ever uttering a word (his music for the most part is lyric-less).
Though the first two Wrekmeister Harmonies releases—2013’s “You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me” and 2014’s “Then It All Came Down”—were impressive starts, it is perhaps “Night Of Your Ascension” where Robinson solidifies himself as an auteur. It was released though Thrill Jockey on November 13th, Friday the 13th to be exact, which is perhaps more coincidental for being the same day as the national release of the film “Spotlight,” which follows the Boston Globe’s exhaustive coverage of disgraced priests like Geoghan, and also the same the day Robinson finally checks out of Chicago and picks up the next part of his journey due West where everything eventually sets. Continue Reading…
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