Throughout its history and many forms, the requiem has become synonymous with deep, often suffocating mourning, solemnity, and piety.
But then there have been others, like Laurence Pike, willing to subvert things further.
“All life is a constant transition of states,” he writes in the extensive liner notes for The Undreamt-of Centre, a requiem for choir, drums, and electronics.
Loosely set to the Greek myth of Orpheus, the choir’s song is wordless yet carries a rich narrative in its melodies and harmonies.
Created in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns and the death of his father-in-law, there are passages strewn across the album that feel particularly intimate – fragile remembrances embedded in evocative field recordings and chiming effects like those found on the diffuse ambient of ‘The Undreamt-of Centre’.

Laurence Pike – The Undreamt-of Centre