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SPELLLING

Spellling

Spellling & They Mystery School

    Spellling, the moniker of the Bay Area experimental pop mastermind Chrystia Cabral, returns with Spellling & the Mystery School, a collection of richly envisioned new versions of songs from throughout her critically-acclaimed discography, out August 25 via Sacred Bones. Recorded with her touring band (est. 2021), these reimagined studio tracks follow Cabral's spellbinding career — from her 2017 breakthrough debut Pantheon Of Me, to 2018's multidimensional synth-based project Mazy Fly, and her expansive third album, 2021's The Turning Wheel, breathing new life into the extravagant orchestrations she's written and produced entirely herself.

    "With this album, I wanted to capture the ways that these songs have morphed; Cabral says of Spellling er the Mystery School. "They're like my children all grown up in a different stage of their lives, and I wanted to celebrate that:'

    Throughout Spellling & the Mystery School, Cabral's hypnotizing voice is enveloped in a newly fleshed-out sonic universe of dreamy strings (Del Sol Quartet and Divya Farias), haunting piano (Jaren Feeley), driving trip-hop percussion (Patrick Shelley) and bass (Giulio Xavier Cetto), shredding electric guitar (Wyatt Overson), and drama-intensifying background vocals (Toya Wil-lock and Dharma Moon-Hunter).

    Overall, the album encapsulates the transportative Spellling live experience through which Cabral, with her idiosyncratic stage presence, conjures up a spiritual sense of communion and vulnerability among her audience. "I want people to feel like there's alchemy happening and to be aware of the magical parts of sound," she explains. "Like, this really did come out of thin air:'

    Cabral plans to bring her otherworldly live set through a special performance with Atlas Obscura this summer, held at Children's Fairyland, a historical children's amusement park in Oakland that her own mother used to frequent as a child. There, she will unravel her mythical songs that inter-rogate ideas of self-concept and political history, aided by the backdrop that will no doubt bring out her music's other dimensions of playfulness, innocence, curiosity, and joy.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Walk Up To Your House
    2. Under The Sun
    3. They Start The Dance
    4. Cherry
    5. Haunted Water
    6. Hard To Please (Reprise)
    7. Phantom Farewell
    8. Boys At School
    9. Always
    10. Revolution
    11. Sweet Talk

    Spellling

    The Turning Wheel

      Red velvet curtains draw back to reveal a cosmic wheel of fortune, floating in the deep black star-studded theater of infinite space. A whirl of timbres, personalities, and stories. The Turning Wheel revolves around themes of human unity, the future, divine love and the enigmatic ups and downs of being a part of this carnival called Life.

      Venturing to push the boundaries of her primarily synth-based work, Spelling took on the ambitious task of orchestrating and self-producing an album that features an ensemble of 31 collaborating musicians. The Turning Wheel incorporates a vast range of rich acoustic sounds that cast Spelling’s work into vibrant new dimensions. The double LP is split into two halves - “Above” and “Below.” Lush string quartet shimmer combines with haunting banjo and wandering bassoon leads, as the album progresses from the more jubilant, warm, and dreamy mood of the “Above” tracks to the more chilling and gothic tone of the “Below” tracks. This progression is anchored by Spelling’s familiar bewitching vocal style that emphasizes the theatrical and folkloric heart of her songwriting.

      The release of The Turning Wheel was delayed by over a year from its intended release date in 2019, but the forced pause ended up serving as a blessing in disguise. Navigating the chaos of recording and producing the remaining instrumentalists - either remotely or through rigid socially distanced studio sessions - was immensely difficult, however the delays ultimately provided the opportunity for Spelling to dedicate more attention to her lyrics. The Turning Wheel demonstrates a distinct evolution of lyrical style, from the more incantatory and abbreviated approach of her previous work to a more expansive, narrative production.

      The Turning Wheel is a manifestation of this considerable effort, time, and collaborative energy and will surely become a classic for its elegance. And while the artist’s eclectic influences, from soul to psych to pop to noise, remain present, something entirely new has also been born in the cosmic soup of this massive undertaking: a grand and genreless adventure. One that allows the artist’s authenticity to shine and also marks her as a conduit for something with a magic of its own.


      TRACK LISTING

      1. Little Deer
      2. Always
      3. Turning Wheel
      4. The Future
      5. Awaken
      6. Emperor With An Egg
      7. Boys At School
      8. Legacy
      9. Queen Of Wands
      10. Magic Act
      11. Revolution
      12. Sweet Talk


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