Norwegian singer Susanna has announced she'll release her new album, The Garden Of Earthly Delights, through SusannaSonata on February 22. You can hear a stream of the first song, City Of Hope, below.
"City Of Hope is a manic chant for guiding in love and life, with hints of ecstasy in the horizon even though something's lurking in the undertow," Susanna tells Prog.
The new album has been inspired by the Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch, and was originally a commissioned work for the Vossajazz Festival 2017. "While this is not a soundtrack to his paintings," she continues, "I feel a resemblance between the absurdity in his pictures and today’s existence. Humanity has never been more enlightened and competent to make sustainable solutions for everyone, but we still close our eyes to poverty, environmental issues and lack of equality.
"This album is about exclusion in various senses, wandering and seeking something else within or outside yourself, the beauty of life, overconsumption, capitalism tied together with religious mythical and occult images and symbols."
The album features The Brotherhood of Our Lady, a new group (named after the religious organisation that sponsored Bosch) drawn from Norway’s current dynamic, young and open minded music scene, with members of bands like Skadedyr, Stina Stjern, Listen to Girl and Propan. The album was recorded in the extraordinary Ocean Sound Studio, recently used by iamthemorning.
The full tracklisting is:
1. Garden of Earthly Delights
2. Wayfarer
3. Ecstasy X
4. Death and the Miser
5. Ship of Fools
6. Ecstasy
7. Wilderness
8. Wayfarer II
9. Gluttony and Lust
10. Beautiful Life
11. By Earth and Starry Heaven
12. City of Hope
13. River to Hell
14. Gathering of Birds
