Dutch minimalist composer Jozef Van Wissem moves away from contemporary classical music and towards experimental folk on his new album When Shall This Bright Day Begin. It’s a gorgeous, haunting, mesmerizing twist that pays big dividends on his new single “Ruins”, which features the incomparable Zola Jesus. Meanwhile Van Wissem’s lute playing is seductive and virtuosic, as its warmness pulls the listener deep into the music only to be slayed again by Zola Jesus’ ethereal vocals. In addition, the video for “Ruins” is a beautiful, artistic film short.
Van Wissem says that “this video is part of a triptych, three videos referencing Caspar David Friedrich. According to director Michael Nirenberg it’s ‘pretty much a stop motion video where images are collaged onto paper and move around, turn into other images, get torn off, bands of color, and pretty much do anything you can do with paper, exacto knife and gluestick’. One night we were drinking in Brooklyn and he showed me his collages and talked about how cool it would be to “animate” them. So we went to the Strand bookstore in Manhattan one afternoon and bought $20 worth of $1 books. Michael cut up the books and made the whole video on his kitchen table. The song is also my second collaboration with Zola Jesus. the ‘Ruins’ title fits well with the architects talking on ‘When shall this bright day begin’.”