Nate Wooley is on his sixth volume of his song cycle, with this recent incarnation a 45 minute single opus piece with the trumpet player bringing in a disparate group including Rhodes players Emily Manzo/Isabelle O’Connor, guitarists Ava Mendoza/Julien Desprez, pedals steeler Susan Alcorn along with drummers Chris Corsano/Ryan Sawyer/Ben Hall ,violinists C. Spencer Yeh/Samara Lubelski and a vast vocal group. This latest album uses lines from Peggy Seeger’s 1979 tune “Reclaim The Night” as a reference point, with the result a melding of liturgical voices, electronic effects, church organ moods and Gregorian chants.
The most intriguing part of this wide spanning and ambitious piece is that the music comes off like someone brought up in church, yet in the liner notes Wooley emphasizes his disdain for “religious dogma” and emphasizes “self-reliance” and “self-as-spirit” a la Emerson. What this intriguing album actually defends is mankind’s dependence on our Creator, as the music, the world and even the rational thought is the reflective of Someone transcendent and not self-produce. Our hearts are restless until they rest with Thee.