“Almost paradoxical in form, managing to imbue the work of an eleventh-century theologian, mystic and composer not just with contemporary resonance but a sense of pioneering potential.” So we wrote of The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, Part Two, the forthcoming release from Chet Doxas and Micah Frank’s Larum on Puremagnetik. The release follows on from 2022’s Part One, an EP “which occupied a unique intersection between the early medieval and avant garde cutting edge,” as we put it, blending woodwind with electronics to create a sound as detailed as it is deep. The result is not so much anachronistic as outside the linear concept of time, refusing the logic that the future might only be located by looking forwards.
Latest single ‘O orzchis ecclesia’ continues this aesthetic, enlisting South Korean cellist/improviser Okkyung Lee to add sustained lines to further the Larum sound. Taking inspiration from one of von Bingen antiphons, the track taps into the ceremonial ritualism that marked the abbess, theologian, mystic and composer’s work, though is more a reinterpretation of old ideas. Instead, Doxas and Frank again demonstrate how the techniques and conventions of the twelfth century can used to create novel sounds within the contemporary moment. However, one thing that is lifted more directly from von Bingen is the language of the track. ‘O orzchis ecclesia’ uses words from what scholars have dubbed von Bingen’s Lingua Ignota—her own personally invented language (“orzchis” translates as “immense”).
