Last month, Kramer released a return-to-form album, once again revisiting his beloved spoken-word discipline, in collaboration with an incredible roster of artists. Released via Shimmy-Disc, POE “To One in Paradise” (for Hal Willner) is a collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s immortal poems read by musicians, poets, actors & one magician, and dedicated to the memory of Kramer’s great friend and fellow traveller on the musical roads least taken, Hal Willner (1956 – 2020).
Though the record was released digitally last month, the vinyl records are set to hit stores tomorrow, November 15th. Today, in celebration of the vinyl release of POE “To One in Paradise” (for Hal Willner), Kramer shares a brand new piece of ambient cinema to accompany the track “The Lake,” read by Jennifer Charles (of Elysian Fields).
Speaking about working with Kramer on The Lake, Jennifer Charles says, “The mysteries that water holds, that nature holds, are kin to the elusive, mutating nature of love. The Lake is such a poem, that undulates with the dark membrane between life and death, where love’s shadow always sleeps. Kramer conjured this world perfectly with my voice and Poe’s poem. I fell in love with the world of Poe as a girl- nothing more romantic than communing with the dead, right? And here we also give tribute to our dear friend and entrusted musical mentor Hal Willner, who we tragically lost to early Covid. Hal featured Elysian Fields in his great Poe tribute concert at St. Ann’s (Bklyn) and Royce Hall (L.A.), so we’ve come full circle. And I know Hal can still hear our howls.”
Kramer has curated an eclectic collection of voices to render living vision to Poe’s entombed words, and draped them in a series of ambient musical landscapes evocative of a world long lost to time. What he offers us here is nothing less than a fully imagined symphony of voice, sound and memory.
The music he created that accompanies each reading keeps the light shining on the performer, polishing the space between the poetry and the performance. As a fitting coda, an archival recording of Allen Ginsberg vividly reciting “The Bells” closes out the album.
“I’ve known Kramer since the early original Knitting Factory days,” Charles remarks, “and we’ve always danced as two respectful ships that pass in the night. Finally we’re getting to make something together, and I feel we’re just dipping our toes in!”
POE “To One in Paradise” (for Hal Willner) is out now via Shimmy-Disc.
