Mimi Goese & Ben Neill


Life You Are - Album Release

Dream pop vocalist Mimi Goese and electronic trumpeter Ben Neill create elegant, eerie electronica that blends sensual lyricism and technology in their unique musical collaboration. On July 24 they will release four new songs that complete their Life You Are album. The songs find poetry in mathematics, combining Goese’s captivating vocals and the electro-acoustic explorations of Neill’s self-designed Mutantrumpet with sounds created from fractals and environmental data. Percussionist David Van Tieghem (Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno) joins the duo on the new recordings, and the fractal sounds were designed by chaos mathematician and philosopher Ralph Abraham.

Goese co-led Hugo Largo, a coveted New York art-rock band that helped shape the horizon of dream pop on two albums for Brian Eno’s Opal label. She later collaborated with Moby. Neill, meanwhile, is an instrumental tinkerer who has explored the fertile intersection of jazz, electronic, and modern classical music. He worked with electronic instrument pioneer Robert Moog and the STEIM studios in Amsterdam to create the Mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument that allows the player to switch between multiple bells, create digital soundscapes, and control interactive video.

In 2010 they collaborated on Persephone, a multimedia piece for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival. Released as an album in 2011, Songs for Persephone summoned Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins, and the 21st-century dreams of acts like M83 and My Brightest Diamond.