Last year, Dawn Richard shared her stellar, out-of-this-world album Second Line. Today, she's returned with news of another project that shows us a completely different side of the musician: a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn. Their album, which is out October 21 via Merge, is called Pigments, and along with the announcement they've shared the first movement that includes four songs: “Coral,” “Sandstone,” “Indigo,” and “Vantablack."
The pair first worked together on Zahn's 2018 debut album People of the Dawn and now have reunited to explore more experimental sounds. The first concept that arose for them was “someone painting with broken brushes,” Richard said. “I felt like the tools that I and other people like me were dealt weren’t shiny. Yet we still painted these beautiful pictures. This album is what it means to be a dreamer and finally reach a place where you’ve decided to love the pigments that you have.”
The album is a tribute to Richard's father Frank Richard, who received his master’s degree in classical music theory and was the lead singer of the funk band Chocolate Milk. “The point is that we’re going through the same thing in different ways,” Richard added. “No matter what walks of life we come from, the story can be similar.”
The other collaborators on Pigments include Stuart Bogie (clarinet), Mike Haldeman (guitar, sampled electronic instruments), Malcolm Parson (cello, violin, viola), Dave Scalia (drums), Kirk Schoenherr (electric guitar), Jas Walton (tenor saxophone, flute), and Doug Wieselman (clarinet).
Watch the directional debut from Dawn Richard for "Vantablack" and hear the rest of the movement below.
