Experimental lute player Jozef Van Wissem and acclaimed film director and musician Jim Jarmusch will release a new collaborative LP for Sacred Bones.

Van Wissem and Jarmusch have a working relationship that dates back to 2006, when they ran into each other on the street in New York City and quickly struck up a friendship. Van Wissem contributed to the soundtrack for Jarmusch’s 2013 movie Only Lovers Left Alive, and the two have collaborated on three previous studio albums—Apokatastasis, Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity, and The Mystery of Heaven. 

An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil is their second release as a duo for Sacred Bones Records, following The Mystery of Heaven, and its narrative picks up where that album left off.

Like The Mystery of Heaven, An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil delves into the theology of William Blake and Emanuel Swedenborg, this time also exploring the work of Russian occultist and philosopher Helena Blavatsky. The album is mostly instrumental, so the dialogue between the esoteric thinkers who inspired it and Van Wissem and Jarmusch is expressed primarily in the song titles—fittingly arcane phrases like “Concerning the White Horse,” “The Two Paths,” “When the Sun Rises Do You Not See A Round Disc of Fire.”

Musically, we’re told that the album finds much of its power in minimalism. Van Wissem’s lute traces the outlines of subdued electronics and ominous guitar drones laid down by Jarmusch. It’s a subtle album, and “repeat listens reveal vast depths in its dark corners,” we’re told.

Tracklisting

01. Concerning the White Horse

02. Dark Matter

03. The Unclouded Day

04. The Two Paths

05. Lost Continent

06. Final Initiation

07. When the Sun Rises Do You Not See a Round Disc of Fire

An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil LP lands on February 8, with “Concerning the White Horse” streaming below.