13th Floor New Song Of The Day: Gramsci – Ancient History

After a Friday night helping The Ding Dong Lounge stay afloat, one needs a little chill music in the morning. And here’s Gramsci with the perfect tune.

Paul McLaney revives the act for their first new music in 15 years. Here’s the dope on the song, the video and the album:

This is the first new music from Gramsci in 15 years, with lead single ‘Ancient History’ from the soon to be released album Inheritance.

Unsurprisingly, musically prodigious NZ composer, singer, guitarist and Gramsci mainstay Paul McLaney, has spent the intervening years studiously. McLaney has long relished challenging himself artistically, and his discography is testament to an extremely diverse voyage of musical discovery over the years. Be it the classical folk stylings of ‘EDIN’, the ambient electronica of The Impending Adorations or the theatrical song settings of Shakespearean soliloquies, for McLaney it’s all been about the inspirational intertwining of musical and personal growth.

Now many inspired years on, all of those experiential threads are woven into the musical tapestry that is the new Gramsci album Inheritance, due for release on 26 June. The idea of a new Gramsci album came about as an epiphany to McLaney, where the sudden realisation that it needed to happen was concurrent with the understanding that it was already close to complete in his head.

‘Ancient History’, the first offering off the upcoming album, is a reflective and personal song about moving past regret and now living life with a daily grace, a time to put the past behind and move into the here and now.

Beautifully crafted, ‘Ancient History’ is a soaring and moving listen as atmospheric guitars and thunderous drums combine with McLaney’s distinctive and emotive vocals.

The visually intriguing video accompanying ‘Ancient History’ is compiled from an early experimental masterpiece ‘Ballet Mécanique’ (1923–24), a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray).