When PYUR presented ‘Lucid Anarchy’ to us at the 2023 edition of Semibreve, in gnration’s blackbox, we immediately envisaged her compositions and soundscape in a spacious venue like Theatro Circo. There was no shortage of brilliance and allure in that concert (quite the opposite, in fact!), but there is something architecturally dimensional about Sophie Schnell’s music that cries out for a generous space where it can take shape, organise itself, and create its own systems. Many of these narratives are of the mind, for PYUR’s music is like a sonic handbook for the transcendental. It is no coincidence that her fourth album, which we are premiering here, springs from her time spent in contemplation at Berlin’s St. Matthäus Church, where artistic creation and spirituality coexist harmoniously. “Mass Oneiria” is the title of this new ritual, in which shards of voice and electronica swirl toward a collective ecstasy. The visual aspect of this encounter could only have been crafted by Tarik Barri, unfolding before us the most faithful spectral projection of a synaesthetic experience.

Commissioned by Semibreve under Re-Imagine Europe, a programme co-funded by the European Union