Minor Works of Popular Music
Release date: 13th October, 2023
Format: 2 x LP, Digital
Contact: contact@popularmusic.rip
Popular Music is proud to present Minor Works — a new album for the end of time — to be released October 13, 2023 via the group’s own Sanitarium Sound Services imprint.
Written and produced by the Hollywood/Melbourne-based duo of Zac Pennington (former leader of American cult act Parenthetical Girls) and composer Prudence Rees-Lee, Minor Works marks the group’s debut collection of original material, and the first Pennington-penned release in a decade.
An 11-part song cycle set in apocalyptic contemporary Los Angeles, the hyper-cinematic songs of Minor Works embrace Armageddon in its myriad forms: literal, personal, existential, eschatological. The album’s novelistic, semi-autobiographical narrative concerns a cast of exiles at the end of the world — a loose tapestry of doomsday cultists, missing persons, grieving mothers and other lost causes. This is the rapture without redemption; a palm-lined purgatory where “No prayers were ever answered/No untold loves confessed/No consciences forgiven/No consequences left.”
Recording across three continents, Minor Works’ ambitious productions were pieced together in sessions between Los Angeles, Melbourne, Moscow and New York — with percussion programming by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, contributions from celebrated composer Jherek Bischoff (Angel Olsen, Xiu Xiu, Neil Gaiman), plus a 17-piece Russian chamber orchestra conducted over Zoom (no, really).
Photos by Darren Sylvester
~ Dramatis Personae ~
Jherek Bischoff……………….Guitars, Contrabass, Atmosphere
Juliette Pearl Davis…………..………………………………..Flutes
Diego Gaeta…………………………………………………..Piano
Selene Messinis……………..…………………………………Piano
Opensound Orchestra………………………….……………Strings
Greg Saunier………………………………..Rhythm Programming
Lehmann B Smith………………………….…….Guitars, Mandolin
Claire Strasser…………………………………………Saxophones
Mixed by Nao Anzai
Mastered by Jherek Bischoff
Vocal engineering by Jill Farrar
Additional engineering by Rohan Sforcina
Key Dates
Oct 13 – Minor Works release date
Oct 26th – Release show at the Curtin – Tickets
Downloads
Minor Works full album (.mp3)
Cover Artwork 1000px (.jpeg)
Press Images
Stream
Minor Works on Soundcloud
Contact
For more information on Popular Music please contact: contact@popularmusic.rip
About Us
Zac Pennington
Songwriter/performer Zac Pennington has spent nearly two decades charting a strange and singular path through the arteries of independent pop music. As founder and creative director for the musical group Parenthetical Girls, Pennington self-released four critically acclaimed full-length albums (and countless other recordings) via his own Slender Means Society imprint — releases supported by extensive touring throughout Europe and North America.
Over the course of his career, Pennington has written for and toured as a member of the experimental group Xiu Xiu, and has shared stages with David Byrne, Rufus Wainwright, Perfume Genius, Devendra Banhart, Dirty Projectors, Deerhoof and more. His works have been performed at art institutions like the Guggenheim, the Getty Museum, REDCAT (Los Angeles), and St. Ann’s Warehouse (New York City), as well as numerous international arts and music festivals, including the Donaufestival (Vienna), Primavera Sound (Barcelona), Intersecciones (Spain), PuSh Festival (Vancouver, B.C.), Bumbershoot (Seattle), New Island Festival (NYC), and PICA’s Time-Based Arts Festival (Portland). He is also the recipient of an Oregon Arts Commission grant, and Sound Magazine’s “Songwriter Of the Year” award. He is currently one half of the group Popular Music, alongside composer Prudence Rees-Lee.
Prudence Rees-Lee
Prudence Rees-Lee is an Australian artist who divides her time between Melbourne (AU) and Los Angeles (USA). She draws on sounds from across the spectrum of popular and obscure music to create work that defies easy categorization. She is a multi-instrumentalist with expertise in cello and synthesis, and a prolific performer of new and experimental music.
As a songwriter, she has released two baroque pop, full-length LPs — Court Music From the Planet of Love (Special Award Records 2013) and Growing Closer (Eastmint 2019), each to critical acclaim. Her recorded output also includes experimental tapes (Stereophonic Experiments in Magnetic Tape and Circuitry 2020), orchestral recordings (Inner Voices, 2022), multichannel works (Crystal Universe and Beyond Nature, 2022), and music multiple music videos.
In addition to her own music, Prudence has contributed countless recordings as a session musician for artists including Lehmann B Smith, Helena Plazzer, Esther Hannaford and Chelsea Rose. She has worked extensively in theatre, primarily with the experimental, multi-award-winning company Four Larks, and composed and performed original music The Simple Simples (2015 – 2016), directed by John Gilkey (Cirque Du Soleil). Since 2015 she has also worked with scientists from NASA and Stanford to investigate artistic responses to their research, particularly ways their processes could inform new approaches to sound.
Her work has been supported by Arts Victoria, Creative Victoria, The Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, Flor De Sol (Bolivia), The Getty (USA), New Music USA, The National Gallery of Victoria, The Melbourne Animation Festival, Australian Embassy (Berlin), Melbourne Fringe Festival, and Hollywood Fringe Festival, and has consistently received strong support on Melbourne community radio, as well as FBi (Sydney), 4ZZZ (Brisbane) and RTR (Perth), the ABC’s Radio National and Double J. Music she has written has been featured in TV (most recently ABC’s Crazy Fun Park, 2023), podcasts, dance, and fashion shows and reviewed in national publications such as The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
She has performed throughout Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South America, and North America. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Melbourne (2005), a Certificate in Deep Listening (2021), and is currently completing a Masters in Spacial Sound at RMIT.
