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Sleep of ReasonScheduled for release in late April 2025, this two-disc album is a collaboration between lyricist Neil Tennant, pianist/composer Mark Springer, and the Sacconi String Quartet. Neil has described the origins of his participation in this project in the following manner:
I bought a book of Goya's print series Los Caprichos which had inspired Mark's music and saw that the artworks were a satirical, cruel, nightmarish portrayal of the politics, corruption and culture of his era, exploring his dreams—or nightmares—while exposing the double standards of the ruling establishment. The lyrics I wrote for Sleep of Reason, in response to Los Caprichos, are intended to be sardonic and dreamlike, looking back to Goya's nightmares but then reflecting on my experiences in 21st Century popular culture and media in which I have located the "monsters" Goya saw in his dreams. It often feels like we're living in an era dominated by monsters with their grotesque egos hollering through social media, unfiltered and untruthful, leaving a trail of wreckage behind them. Maybe it's always felt like that.
An advance press release describes this work as "a suite for piano, quartet, and quintet with vocals, accompanied by lyrics offering thoughtful introspection." Since this slightly ambiguous wording appears to refer to the Sacconi Quartet themselves as the "quartet," the "quintet with vocals" would therefore seem to indicate a group of five singers. Whether this is accurate and whether Neil himself is one of those singers remains to be seen.
Mark Springer first gained attention in the early 1980s as keyboardist for the short-lived but critically heralded U.K. band Rip Rig + Panic, who were known for fusing jazz, rock, pop, funk, and reggae. They released three albums (none of which charted) before Springer left the group in 1984, which then reformed under the new name Float Up CP. Springer pursued an esoteric solo career and has released more than a dozen albums of his compositions, sometimes consisting of spontaneous inventions or improvisations. He has also composed a variety of film and television scores.
The Sacconi String Quartet (more commonly known as just the Sacconi Quartet) is a U.K. classical music string quartet founded in 2001 by graduates of the Royal College of Music. Named for the twentieth-century Italian violin maker Simone Sacconi, they've proven highly acclaimed in classical music, having won numerous prizes and recorded and released several albums of music by Beethoven, Haydn, Ravel, Smetana, and other classical composers on their own Sacconi Records label.
The tracks have been listed as follows:
A. Sleep of Reason / Quintet / Voice and Strings
- Phantoms and Monsters
- A Witch and a Devil
- Truth Is for Losers
- Schmutzig*
- My Friend the Monster
- The Madness of the Summer
*The German word schmutzig can have a variety of translations in English, including "dirty," "filthy," "muddy," "foul," "squalid," "sordid," "messy," "disgusting," "lewd," "smutty," and "unwholesome." Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how it translates lyrically.
B. Sleep of Reason / Quartet / String Quartet
- Morn
- Noon
- Night
C. Sleep of Reason / Piano Solo
- Flight
D. Sleep of Reason / Piano Solo
- Break
- Moon
I'll provide additional information here as it becomes available.
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