A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Invisible Cities (CD)

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A Winged Victory for the Sullen, the composer collaboration between Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O'Halloran, are set to release new album Invisible Cities, the stunning score to the critically acclaimed theatre production directed by London Olympics ceremony video designer Leo Warner. Released on their own Artificial Pinearch Manufacturing label, the record comes as part of an agreement with A Winged Victory for the Sullen's current label, Ninja Tune.

Premiering in July 2019 at the Manchester International Festival, the duo was commissioned by Warner's 59 Productions to score the music for the 90-minute multimedia theatrical stage show, adapted from Italo Calvino's 1972 novel, Invisible Cities. Described by The Sunday Times as "a beautiful frenzy of movement," it fuses theatre, music, dance, architectural design and visuals and brings to life a series of fantastical places and disparate worlds, centred on the tense relationship between Kublai Khan, the volatile head of a vast empire, and explorer Marco Polo. Originally conceived as a touring project, its last performance was in Brisbane, Australia before COVID-19 changed the world as we know it.

"Four months is not a lot of time to create 90 minutes of music for a production using classical theatre, dance and high res video mapping on a stage the size of two football pitches. It was a pleasure to work with 59 Productions, unlike other producers, they left the micro-managing at home, and let us get on with it. Early on in discussions with director Leo Warner it was realised that the human voice would take a central role in the score as it was essentially the only instrument we could see evolving over 600 years with a storyline that would not have the listener screaming 'its Zimmertime...'" says Wiltzie.

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- CD