A Prayer For Light

VINYL FORMAT. Heresy Of The Free Spirit is a trio comprised of Dutch lute player, Jozef van Wissem and Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalists, Che Chen (of True Primes) on violin, bowed rawap, bass recorder, percussion and tape machines, and Robbie Lee (of Howling Hex, Baby Dee, Brightblack Morning Light) on portative organ, bass recorder, guitar, banjo and electronics. Using early European as well as non-Western instruments and electronics, the trio plays arrangements of van Wissem's lute compositions as well as free improvisations that draw on early music, folk traditions, minimalism and noise. Fully utilizing the extended techniques, unique textures and tuning possibilities of their unusual instruments, the trio use both repetition and silence as ways of entering trance-like states. Their record, A Prayer For Light is a radical re-imagining of early European and American primitive music in which the sources are stretched and re-purposed to accommodate free improvisation, extended, repetitive song forms, and tape manipulations.