Internal Return, the second and most recent full-length by composer Nicol Eltzroth Rosendorf, is set to arrive via streaming platforms on June 9. A vinyl release will arrive in August via Negative Capability Editions.
In the meantime, RadATL is honored to premier the album’s first single and music video, titled “Olah (Burnt Offering).”
For this latest album, Rosendorf weaves together Ashkenazi musical tones, textures, and melodies with electronic drone music. The song’s magic lies in its smooth combination of these elements, giving rise to a vast, atmospheric piece of music that stands on its own as a cohesive work, as well as an entry point into a nuanced excursion into the surreal. “Olah (Burnt Offering)” retains the post-industrial essence of Rosendorf’s 2020 debut, Big Other, while placing an emphasis on environmental sublimation and a refined sense of Rosendorf’s singular compositional style as a musician and visual artist.
For this song premier, “Olah (Burnt Offering)” is accompanied by a RadATL exclusive track titled “Shûb.”
For this project, Rosendorf used Chat GPT to create a series of instagram posts—song descriptions—written in the style of a 19th century Rabbi. Follow @nicol_eltzroth_rosendorf on Instagram for more.
“For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters” (Job 3:24).
The Internal Return commences with “Olah (Burnt Offering)“—titled after the sacred Burnt Offering in the Jewish tradition. Just as the Burnt Offering is brought forth as a symbol of devotion and atonement, so too does this music seek to perturb within us a sense of expansive intensity. The peculiarly unprecedented fusion of the explosive machinery of synthesizers and distorted guitars, twined with the Ashkenazi tools of the clarinet and the violin, is the musical ideal I have been seeking.
Drawing inspiration from a fragment of Wagner’s “Magic Fire Music,” I have transformed the notes with the Klezmer scale and stretched them to their very limits. The result has taken on a life of its own, evolving from a weighty drone with a prominent sampled clarinet into a powerful expression with the addition of a masterful violin solo by the renowned musician, Daniel Hoffman.
Hoffman, a true virtuoso, came to my attention with his band Davka, which created some of my most personality-treasured music. With his intervention, I have sought an authenticity of sound, and with the replacement of the sampled clarinet with the real instrument by the esteemed Ben Bertrand the composition has attained an even greater depth. I am boundlessly thankful for their contributions.
Contrasting the anti-Semitic notes of Wagner’s music with Jewish concepts of sacrificial offering is a sort of koan. Titling the piece with a Hebrew word that contains the root of Holocaust is nearly a pun. One can only try to laugh in the face of the void.
Again and again—I do not speak Hebrew, German, or Yiddish.
I am not in any way a conventionally religious person.
I am so proud of this body of work, and I hope it pleases you.
As it is written in the Talmud, ‘All beginnings are difficult.'”
Three versions of the physical release will be out June 9, including the limited edition 180g vinyl, a deluxe set that includes a Giclee print as well as a CD featuring remixes By Rafael Anton Irisarri, Siavash Amini, and Terence Hannum. More details will be available soon. Click here to pre-order “the album”Olah (Burnt Offering).”
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