“Massive… the walls of genre are broken down as sounds morph and blend throughout.”
(WNMU Best of 2019)
About the Album
Released May 3, 2019 on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records
New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records release Grammy-winning producer and composer William Brittelle’s Spiritual America with acclaimed American rock duo Wye Oak, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Metropolis artists.
The album features Brittelle’s genre-fluid classical-rock / electro-acoustic song cycle and a re-imagined Wye Oak composition on a journey into nostalgia. Spiritual America is the second release in a new partnership between the two record labels, established with the goal of enabling contemporary American composers to realize creative ambitions that might not otherwise be achievable.
Spiritual America was created in collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble, the Alabama Symphony, Symphony Space, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series/Walker Art Center, the Palm Springs Art Museum, and the Baltimore Symphony. The project has received critical acclaim for its premiere performances in 2018 at New York City’s Symphony Space (performed by Wye Oak, Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Metropolis Ensemble), and opening for Bon Iver and TU Dance at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles (performed by Metropolis Ensemble).
Spiritual America is co-commissioned by Symphony Space, Palm Springs Art Museum, Alabama Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series/Walker Art Center.
Recent Reviews
“Spiritual America transitions into a world of nostalgia, a world where innocence, faith, and doubt all co-exist.”
William Brittelle
In a flurry of activity in recent years, Metropolis and William Brittelle have collaborated on many projects, including Forbidden Colors and The Meta Simulacrum. He won a Grammy for producer of Roomful of Teeth’s 2023 album, Rough Magic.
WATCH: Album promo trailer for “Spiritual America.”
Project In-Depth
For this journey, Brittelle invited collaborators he deeply admired: Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, Metropolis Ensemble, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The album was written over a seven year period and mixed by Brittelle and Zach Hanson (Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, S. Carey, The Staves) over the course of over 250 hours at April Base, the famed Wisconsin studio founded by Justin Vernon.
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Abattoir
True Hunger
Strange Asylum
Topaz Were The Waves
Forbidden Colors
Birds Of Paradise
Spiritual America
I Know The Law
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Spiritual America is a story of dualities - experimental yet emotionally direct, complex yet raw, exceedingly personal yet broad in scope. Featuring hi-fi orchestra and award-winning children's chorus juxtaposed against bit-crushed guitars, iPhone-derived samples, and vintage synthesizers, Brittelle's genre-fluid, collage-like compositional style finds its fullest, most unadulterated form throughout the album. Bits of hair metal, experimental electronic, vaporwave, modern classical, indie rock, and hyper-pop melt into each other forming a homogenous, utterly unique whole.
This dreamlike series of electro-acoustic orchestral songs centers around a loose "coming of age in the '80's" narrative. Images (both lyrical and musical) of cars, sex, God, and teenage angst swirl throughout each movement, coming to a head in the album's emotional apex, "Birds of Paradise." Beneath Brittelle's dense, feverish writing is the forever-world of nostalgia - a dualistic oblivion serving as both salve and siren song for the complexities of adulthood.
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All songs written by William Brittelle, except “I Know the Law” written by Wye Oak
Produced by Zach Hanson and William Brittelle
Co-production by Andrew Stack, Andrew Cyr, Ben Cassorla
Music direction by Andrew Cyr
Engineered by Ryan Streber
Mixed and mastered by Zach Hanson
All tracks feature Ben Cassorla on guitar, except “Topaz Were the Waves” which features Mark Dancigers
William Brittelle
Composer
William Brittelle (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based genre-fluid composer, Grammy-winning producer and creator of hyper-text and multimedia. An avid collaborator, Brittelle has worked with a number of artists across multiple disciplines. His latest full-length LP entitled Spiritual America featuring Wye Oak, the Metropolis Ensemble, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, was released by Nonesuch/New Amsterdam in 2019. Increasingly active as a producer, upcoming and recent projects include albums with Alex Temple/Julia Holter/Spektral Quartet, vocalist/percussionist Jodie Landau, the string ensemble Owls, singer/composer Aditya Prakash, vocalist Holland Andrews, violinist Michi Wiancko, keyboardist Erika Dohi, and Roomful of Teeth. More »
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
The Grammy-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus is a collective of young voices led by visionary Founder & Artistic Director Dianne Berkun Menaker. The Chorus has performed or recorded with major orchestras and artists, such as New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The National, Barbra Streisand, Arcade Fire, Elton John, and Grizzly Bear. The Chorus can be heard on Nonesuch Records’ first recording of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls. Recordings of the Chorus have also been featured in major motion pictures, commercials, and live events, including Radiohead’s Thom Yorke for rag & bone’s Spring 2016 collection and Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s OTR II World Tour. More »
Wye Oak
Wye Oak is a duo comprising multi-instrumentalists and vocalists Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner that has released five widely acclaimed studio albums, most recently The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs (2018). Wye Oak has been praised as “one of our most gifted, mercurial, unpredictable indie rock bands” (Stereogum) and for making “fierce and arresting rock music” (NPR). More »
Meet the Artists
Spiritual America Album Release
February 16, 2018 / 8pm / Symphony Space
Indie rock duo Wye Oak and Metropolis opens the evening with songs from their 2014 album Shriek arranged by Brooklyn-based composer William Brittelle. The centerpiece of the evening is the world premiere of Brittelle's song cycle, Spiritual America, performed by Wye Oak, Metropolis Ensemble, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus.