Courtney Jaye Announces New Album & Companion Film 'Hymns And Hallelucinations'
Watch Part One of the film 'The Awakening' which features the LP's title track and "The Kingdom Is Inside Me."
by Nate Todd
Photo by Julia Drabczyk
Singer-songwriter Courtney Jaye will issue a new album, Hymns And Hallelucinations, via Tropicali Records on May 20. Tracks from the album are set for release with segments of a four-part film beginning with the title track and "The Kingdom Is Inside Me" which arrived with the film's Part One: The Awakening.
Courtney Jaye described Hymns And Hallelucinations as "spiritual music for weirdos." While the singer-songwriter had her doubts about making a "gospel record," her friend Randolph Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, Grammy-winning keyboardist for The Mars Volta and Jack White, encouraged her to push forward with the concept and offered to produce. Sadly, Owens died in 2014 and Jaye dedicates the album to his memory.
But Hymns And Hallelucinations isn't your traditional gospel record. "These songs are less about religion - or at least the fundamentalist definition of religion, with its absolutes and unflinching certainties - than it is the search for God, whatever that means to you," press materials for the LP noted.
Jaye produced Hymns and Hallelucinations with mixing from Tucker Martine. The record also features contributions from guitarist William Tyler (who serves as musical director), The Raconteurs' Jack Lawrence, Loney John Hutchins, pedal steel ace Luke Schneider and singer-songwriter Mikaela Davis.
"I poured everything into making a record about the near-death experiences - personally, artistically, and professionally - that led me to understand myself in the hopes that it can help others going through the same thing," Jaye said of the album. "I want them to know they are not alone, that these trials life puts us through do have purpose."
Courtney further detailed Hymns and Hallelucinations and its accompanying film, directed by Joshua Shoemaker, as "an introspective, meditative, psychedelic exploration into the soul of a woman: her rage, her confusion, her sadness, her sexuality, her defiance, her darkness, her strength, and her light." The film follows the story of a woman who is "discovering the deepest parts of herself as she faces her fears head-on," Courtney continued, "evolving along the way and becoming illuminated to the Ultimate Power behind it all."
Watch Part One: The Awakening below, which contains album opener "The Kingdom Is Inside Me" and the title track:
Hymns and Hallelucinations Tracklist:
The Kingdom Is Inside Of Me Hymns and Hallelucinations Three Let There Be Light Rise Like The Spirit Deep Six Take It Up With The Lord Just Say Yes< Unknown Companion The Grand Finale
