Trey Spruance’s avant garde project Secret Chiefs 3 will release a new record as part of a 11-album set. The band’s name was inspired by esoteric and mystical guiding authorities known as Secretr Chiefs. The choice reflects Spruance’s vivid interest in such philosophies, as reported by mxdwn. Moreover, Westword revealed that the project is merely a general name that encompasses many other satellite bands, each mirroring one of Spruance’s different interests. Those are Electromagnetic Azoth, UR, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, FORMS, and NT Fan.
The new record, titled MALKHUT, will be released as a contribution to John Zorn’s Masada Book Series. The final release will consists of a 11-album box set titled Masada Book III: Beri’ah.
Masada is John Zorn’s creature. Zorn is a renown composer and saxophone player whose musical career and style are hard to catalogue. With his multiple projects he crossed over various genres, from avant garde to punk. Masada, however, was born in 1993 and consists of a profound exploration of Jewish music and heritage through a long series of composition, over two hundreds to be exact.
The project is also a music collective which has included artists such as the Masada Quartet, Bar Kokhba, Electric Masada, the Masada String Trio and cutting edge interpretations by musicians as varied as Joe Lovano, Secret Chiefs 3, Pat Metheny, Cyro Baptista, Craig Taborn, Garth Knox etc.
In its first decade of existence, Masada focused on Masada Book One, Masada Book Two and The Book of Angels followed in 2004 and 2014 saw the beginning of the third decade of the Masada dynasty with a final collection of Masada compositions with Book Three, The Book B’riah.
Secret Chiefs 3 will share its contribution to Masada in the upcoming release which will culminate with a live performance at Space Symphony in New York City on April 12th, 2018. Secret Chiefs and John Zorn will share the stage with Banquet of the Spirits and Zion80. The band, however, had already been featured in a previous Masada release in 2008 when their album Xaphan: Book of Angels Volume 9 was included in the compilation titled The Book Of Angels.
MALKHUT, which was released on March 9th, features a long series of players Trey Spruance (guitars, clavinet, kinnor, analog synth pads, theater organ, extra percussion, nevel, glockenspiel, sound fx), Eyvind Kang (violin, viola), Ches Smith (congas, vibes, shakers, dumbek), Matt Lebofsky (piano, elec. piano, hammond and farfisa organ, moog), Kenny Grohowski (drums), Shanir Blumenkranz (bass), Jason Schimmel (guitar) and Ryan Parrish (kaval).
The artwork, once again reflecting Spruance’s passion for philosophy and esoterism, depicts a series of dots each containing a number. They start from one and go till ten, giving shape to what can only be seen as a geometrical figure, the meaning of which remains undisclosed.
Tour Dates:
04/18 – Symphony Space – New York City, NY
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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