WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES
Commissioned by the Knitting Factory’s LOUD MUSIC/SILENT FILM series, her vocal score for the 1921 Swedish Silent Classic HEXAN (or WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES) was created in 1995.
It was created with 10 Songs from the Stealth Songbook. The musicians learned each of the 10 pieces by ear, then, as the film was shown, improvised into and away from the material as in jazz. Performed with Ken Butler on Hybrid Strings and Satoshi Takeishi on Percussion.
Played many times at the Knitting Factory and on tour to Chicago & San Francisco with other film scores by Rebecca Moore, Gary Lucas and Mark Dresser. It was then selected to be part of the First New Haven Festival of the Arts in 1996, New Haven CT, and at Snug Harbor Staten Island NY in the old chapel on Halloween night 2001 just after 9/11.
Christopher Arnott wrote in the NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE, “Ren-Lay’s mystical linguistic music relies heavily on something that falls between language – a language you can’t identify – and song and sound.”