mmmmmmmmmuhlyyyyyyyyyy

The clear standout for us on Nico Muhly's new album was the last bit with Sam Amidon, called 'The Only Tune', the first part of which is streaming above.

Muhly writes:

“The Only Tune”: “Mothertongue started as an attempt to reconnect with the folk music of my childhood; I remember my parents singing the ballad of the two sisters – one murdering the other in a river – and I remember a disjuncture between the simple beauty of the song and the intense violence of the words. I still shiver at the memory of the miller fishing the girl's body out with ‘his long, long hook,’ and the ensuing phrases, in which the girl's corpse is slowly turned into a fiddle, are continuously haunting. In writing ‘The Only Tune,’ which is essentially an explosion of the folk song, I started becoming interested in personal archives – figuring out all the things, physical and otherwise, that define us.”

Our full review of the album is posted at Sequenza 21.