Bastarda – Ars Moriendi – Vintage Jacket Edition SOLD OUT!!

Bastarda are an instrumental Polish trio comprised of clarinet, contrabass clarinet and cello. Their new album, “Ars Moriendi”, released earlier this year in CD format, is a mysteriously minimalist take on certain liturgical compositions and their composers from the medieval ages. It’s time to light the incense, kneel and say your prayers to this appropriately darkly and at times intense soundtrack to the end of life.

“Music in mourning is like a tale out of time’. Thus state the Holy Scriptures (Ecclesiasticus 22:6), suggesting that we fall silent in the face of death. And yet, this biblical admonishment notwithstanding, the passing of medieval and early modern Christians was constantly accompanied by music, from their dying moments to the last rites over their graves. When a Christian felt he was about to die, he would seek the comfort of the Scriptures. He would read excerpts from the Passion of Christ, symbolised here by the chant Vita in ligno moritur [1]. In Commendatio animae, the soul of the dying man was entrusted to God.

Bastarda transfigures this ancient musical ritual: centuries-old chants are fragmented, and the ever-changing counterpoint of early polyphony implodes into minimalism. What is left, is a twenty-first century meditation on death. The ars moriendi, the art of dying well, instructed Christians how to face death and resist the last temptations of the devil. Bastarda’s Ars moriendi does not teach. It is a journey through the paradoxical emotions of the human being, suspended between desperation and hope.

After the rite, those who are left ask themselves ‘Who will give our eyes a fountain of tears?’ (Quis dabit oculis nostris fontem lacrimarum), remembering what is lost. Mourning marks the end, but Bastarda’s interpretation points also at a new beginning of peace and, finally, silence.”
(comments by Antonio Chemotti)

We have ended up having three separate vinyl versions this time around…because we couldn’t help ourselves! All the covers feature the image by Polish artist Stachu Szumski, silkscreened in the San Francisco studio of Morrison Productions in black and gold.

This is the listing for the:

>>The “Vintage Jacket Edition” of only 20 numbered copies comes in the form of an original, vintage LP cover from the 50’s…each of which has been cautiously hand wiped away immediately upon printing the silk-screen design. The back of each of these jackets is covered in torn and reassembled 100 year old  pages from a 90 year old book on the work of the obscure 15th century printer and illustrator Anton Sorg, each stamped and numbered. Included in each of these is the 180gm record in poly lined sleeve, the large heavy weight double sided insert, a unique and original vintage east European funeral photograph, and as supplies last, a “Memorial Record” forms.

TRS085 also comes in a deluxe limited “Box Edition” version of 50 copies, a “Kraft Jacket Edition” of only 60 numbered copies, and a digital version.

As usual, your copy may or may not be one of the ones pictured, as all are unique.
This release will ship the week of October 25th 2019.

More Info about the deluxe packaging and Sound Clips!