Wrekmeister Harmonies with special guest Bill MacKay

Wrekmeister Harmonies’ new album, The Alone Rush, their first as the core duo of JR Robinson and Esther Shaw, is a hauntingly intense and dark meditation on death and isolation, whose concise compositions carry an emotional heft without the orchestrated bombast of their previous four albums.

The Alone Rush retains Wrekmeister Harmonies’ expansive and ambitious aesthetic, blending waves of ethereal keyboards, haunting string melodies, and crescendos of dissonance, but now turns central focus towards Robinson’s deep, rich, and soothing vocals. Keeping the album’s deeply personal subjects in mind, Robinson and Shaw aimed to maintain the material’s emotional potency through an intense intimacy.

“…madrigal/sacred choral music, experimental ambient music, and doom…drawing on musicians from metal, rock, and new music circles.” – Pitchfork

Bill MacKay
Bill MacKay is a highly regarded guitarist-composer-improviser based in Chicago. His radiant songwriting, and creative and unpredictable approach to the guitar have inspired listeners and musicians across & beyond experimental folk, rock, and avant-garde scenes. He is also a writer, emerging polyglot, activist and visual artist, and has been recording & releasing records, and contributing to those of other musicians, since 2004.