Rosarium by Daniel O'Sullivan

Rosarium is the third solo album by English composer, Daniel O’Sullivan. After releasing two albums of experimental songwriting (VELD, 2017; Folly, 2019) and four instrumental collections for the KPM Music Library, O’Sullivan has devoted the past five years to composing a suite of chamber music for the Belgian classical ensemble Echo Collective. The result is a mosaic of self-possessed, elegantly latticed arrangements for strings, woodwinds, piano, harp, choir, and percussion, sculpted with a deep emphasis on texture and counterpoint.

Drawing on a period of solitude, introspection, dream journaling and the insight of raising young children, the influences on this music can be felt more as an internalised elegy rather than musical ancestry. The title of the work is an homage to the mystery schools from Greco-Roman antiquity to modern day psychedelic research and ethnobotany.

There is an opaque sonic lineage at work here as meticulous intervals and shapes are dreamt and sought, mirroring elements of high renaissance music, the late orchestral suites of Duke Ellington, modern sacred music, village green minimalism and hauntological English wyrd. Rosarium is a hybrid music and a new benchmark for O’Sullivan who has diligently scouted musical treasures for over two decades.

Rosarium was recorded at Decca/Jet Studios in Brussels and engineered by Timothy Lewis aka Thighpaulsandra of Spiritualized, Coil, etc. Alongside Echo Collective the ensemble on Rosarium is augmented by American multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick, English vocalist Astrud Steehouder, and poems read by O’Sullivan’s daughter Ivy. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis, London.

Syncretic composition | Nō Problem

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