On May 5, year of the Rooster, Chino Amobi will be releasing a new full-length, titled PARADISO. The 20-track release is coming out on both NON Worldwide (the label he co-founded) and UNO NYC, and it boasts contributions from Elysia Crampton, MORO, Rabit, Dutch E Germ, Aurel Haize Obogbo, Haleek Maul, Embaci, Full Carnage, Jesse Hlebo, Benja SL, Rena Anakwe, Therochelle Moore, FAKA, Lee Jones, and Johnny Utterback.
According to the press release, “Chino tells the story of a musical epic set in a distorted Americana populated by a cast of sirens, demons, angels, imps, priests, hierophants, monsters and peasants. Sprinkled with vocal pieces by its featured artists, PARADISO promotes the myth of a fallen city beleaguered by the apocalypse.”
Listen to Crampton’s spoken-word contribution to the album here and read along with the text pasted below the tracklist. Meanwhile, you can also pre-order PARADISO through Bandcamp, out digitally and on USB, vinyl, and cassette.
PARADISO tracklist:
01. Law I (The City in the Sea)
02. Gænova
03. Blood of The Covenant
04. Negative Fire III
05. The Failed Sons and Daughters of Fantasia
06. Blackout
07. Antikeimenon
08. Nkisi
09. Eigengrau (Children of Hell II)
10. Law II (Demolition)
11. Polizei
12. White Mætel
13. Radical Zero
14. Paradiso
15. Law III (Adam)
16. The Floating World pt. 1
17. The Floating World pt. 2
18. Dixie Shrine
19. Kollaps
20. End (The City in the Sea)
Elysia Crampton’s spoken-word contribution:
O! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city, Paradiso.
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
Time-eaten towers that tremble not
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
More about: Aurel Haize Obogbo, Benja SL, Chino Amobi, Dutch E Germ, Elysia Crampton, Embaci, FAKA, Full Carnage, HALEEK MAUL, Jesse Hlebo, Johnny Utterback, Lee Jones, MORO, Rabit, Rena Anakwe, Therochelle Moore
