The National, Breeders, My Brightest Diamond Team Up for Multimedia Piece

Posted by Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

Aaron and Bryce Dessner, the guitarist twins from the National, are not content to rest easy after jointly producing the twin triumphs of the Dark Was the Night album and concert. Come October, they'll present a brand-new multimedia piece called The Long Count at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The piece, done in collaboration with visual artist Matthew Ritchie, will include guest vocals from the Breeders' Kim and Kelley Deal (also twins!), My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden, and the National's own Matt Berninger. The Dessners will perform it with a 12-piece chamber orchestra. And it sounds really cool.
BAM commissioned the piece as part of its Next Wave art festival, and the Dessners will perform it on October 28, 30, and 31. The Long Count somehow involves both a Mayan creation myth and the 1976 World Series. Here's how the Next Wave press kit describes it:

"Jointly conceived by the collaborators as a one-hour immersive multimedia experience exploring ideas of symmetry and creation, The Long Count weaves together disparate themes ranging from the hero twins of the Popul Vuh (a Mayan creation myth) to the epic 1976 World Series victory of the Cincinnati Reds over the New York Yankees (which occurred in the year of the Cincinnati-born Dessners' birth).

"Ritchie's large-scale sculptural environment frames a one-hour animated film made from the artist's intricate, biomorphic drawings. An evocative, complex score and song cycle composed and performed by the Dessners and a twelve-member chamber orchestra will be illuminated and sung by guest artists."

Ritchie's website doesn't offer much more in the way of details, but it does include this image, which is like whoa.

So, uh, yeah. Sign us up.

The National performed at Big Orbit Gallery on 5/30/01 with Mia Doi Todd and Clogs. My Brightest Diamond visited Soundlab on 11/02/08.