NONPAREILS - Rhetoric & Terror - LP - Vinyl [SEP 20]

LP - Black Vinyl. Limited pressing of 500, with album notes and imagery.  

Nonpareils, aka Aaron Hemphill, presents his second studio album, Rhetoric & Terror, released via Mute.

The album follows 2018’s Scented Pictures, and finds the Berlin-based artist - previously known as co-founder and co-songwriter of Liars - compelled to write more structured music, with specific parts and intentions that allude to visual imagery and emotional states. No stranger to reinventing his approach towards composition, Rhetoric & Terror feels like we are, perhaps for the first time, opening a doorway into Hemphill’s personal life, as well as his disparate sonic influences, wide-ranging journeys through philosophy, and through that, find him reflecting on his own role as an artist.

The album features his wife Angelika Kaswalder on vocals throughout, plus multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson (a longtime friend since Henderson’s time in the post-hardcore band The Blood Brothers) adding woodwinds and additional arrangement on "Unscripting With The Snake And The Swan". Rhetoric & Terror, despite its intimidating name, is welcoming and playful, even during its most intense moments.

Available on vinyl and CD.

Tracklist:

1 Opening Chord
2 Unscripting With The Snake And The Swan
3 Figures Of Speech
4 Flowers Like The Rain
5 Six Six Seven (Monsieur Faux Pas)
6 Bring It On
7 The Broken Mirror Shaped Like A Day
8 Predictable Pan (Theme From A Book Of Perfectly Drawn Lines)
9 Strawberry Hill