Lyra Pramuk - Hymnal

“Music has been a sacred practice throughout human history – a socially connective ritual between humans, animals, and the Earth. It is a medicine and a collective, common good that we all have a right to. It has the potential to bring us together in times of crisis, and to enable a great depth of emotional processing – something much needed in our world.”

Berlin-based, American multidisciplinary artist Lyra Pramuk – vocalist, producer, composer, DJ, performance artist, and astrologer – shares her sophomore album Hymnal: an earthy, raw, and psychedelic burst of euphony for collective healing. In her latest work, Lyra brings together a vast spectrum of elements across art, biology, poetry, cultural theory, and collaborators to weave an audacious symphony of the universe.

Classically trained and raised in Berlin’s club scene, she has garnered critical acclaim for her original, genre-fluid sound rooted in experimental vocals and left-field electronics. Throughout Hymnal, she creates a radical and primal polyphony of innovatively-sampled vocals, in-your-face strings, and futuristic electronic production. These varied elements combine to form an ecstatic genesis, a musical offering that intersects with the minimalism of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, the avant-garde vocal storytelling of Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson, and the political and communal spirit of American folk and dance music.

Moved by the evocative power of strings across musical traditions, Lyra threads them through the fabric of Hymnal, layering rich, sinewy harmonies to evoke the landscapes and creatures that surround us. She collaborated with Berlin-based Sonar Quartett, recording a session that blended composition and improvisation. These recordings were then re-amped, re-sampled, and processed to join her sonic world. All the vocal phrases, chants and ad libs were recorded in one week, in two special spaces in Italy – a cathedral in Venice, and a remote cabin under the stars in the Dolomites. She later reworked the string and vocal samples on CDJs, using her DJ’s sense for rhythm and mixing to channel the political and communal lineage of dance music.

The album’s lyrics, written by American poet Nadia Marcus, form its spiritual core – and were the basis for a unique experiment: part poetic deconstruction, part interspecies collaboration. After distilling the poetry into key words and phrases, Lyra collaborated with artist Jenna Sutela to create a John Cage-inspired ‘I Ching environment,’ where the slime mould Physarum polycephalum traced its own pathways as it grew over a mapped arrangement of the poetic fragments. This in turn created the visual score for Lyra’s vocal improvisations, inviting the single-celled organism into her creative process as an artistic collaborator.

Conceptually rich and process-driven, Hymnal is Lyra’s own book of worship songs: for the Earth, the cosmos, and all life-forms, living and dead. Inspired by the natural world and our place within a mysterious universe, the album invites cosmic interconnectivity, unfurling like a mass bloom in time-lapse from sunset to sunrise. It responds to the multiple, intersecting crises of our times – ecological, humanitarian, socio-political, and techno-philosophical. Driven by the role we must play to address and process the feelings that emerge as our home and human rights are taken from us, it calls us to remember music's early, communal roots, and our own agency in the process of our individual and collective transformation.

A collaborative release on !K7 Music imprint 7K! and Lyra Pramuk’s newly launched pop.soil.