Dilate Your Heart (Limited Coloured Vinyl)

One of the great poets of modern times accompanied by the sounds of Justin Vernon, Sam Gendel, Gia Margaret, Angel Bat Dawid and Mary Lattimore.

‘Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude’ is given a gorgeous, slowly creeping bed of vines by Bon Iver. On ‘Burial,’ harpist and composer Mary Lattimore’s lunar landscape follows Gay’s voice into space, telling of our endless energy exchange with nature. Chicago’s Angel Bat Dawid dances with the frenetic, joyous scene Gay leads us through on ‘To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian,’ in which a group of Philadelphia strangers scramble together to harvest the fruit of the titular urban fig tree. Songwriter Gia Margaret provides a mystical, amniotic environment for Gay’s ‘Poem To My Child If Ever You Shall Be,’ a love letter to an imagined future child, treating Gay’s voice like a message in a bottle to a far off idea made only of love and potential. Sam Gendel, a secret weapon collaborator, affects Gay’s voice on ‘Sorrow Is Not My Name’ to something glassy and almost singsong like. Throughout, Gay recites his poems with bright aliveness, his voice as warm and easy when he speaks about death as when he speaks about mercy, or love.