{"id":292897,"date":"2026-02-11T19:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292897\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:48:10","slug":"colin-self-respite-%e2%88%9e-levity-for-the-nameless-ghost-in-crisis-expanded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292897\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Self, \u201crespite \u221e levity for the nameless ghost in crisis (Expanded)\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBUM OF THE DAY<\/a><\/p>\n

Colin Self, \u201crespite \u221e levity for the nameless ghost in crisis (Expanded)\u201d<\/p>\n

By <\/p>\n

April Clare Welsh<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b7
\n February 11, 2026<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

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\u200b<\/p>\n

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Long before Rosal\u00eda\u2019s operatic theatrics<\/a> broke the internet, Colin Self<\/a> was injecting joy into the artform via an experimental trans-feminist opera project called Elation<\/a>. Launched in 2011, the series consisted of multiple parts with 2018\u2019s Siblings<\/a>\u00a0followed by Orphans<\/a> in 2019. Self re-emerged five years later with the lemniscate<\/a> EP, after enduring a particularly challenging period marked by \u201closs and uncertainty.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally released last February, respite \u221e levity for the nameless ghost in crisis <\/a>became the follow-up to lemniscate and the third full-length album for the U.S.-born composer, producer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary artist\u2014a record described in the press notes<\/a> as \u201ca greeting after years of conscious exile.\u201d Now, a newly expanded reissue brings 11 new delights to the table,\u00a0nearly half of which are collaborative pieces made with \u201cold friends,\u201d including Will Wiesenfeld\u2014aka Baths<\/a>\u2014and Geo Wyex<\/a>. These additions comprise the second half of this shapeshifting album, where the voice is the protagonist and an operatic phantom twists and twirls through red-velvet corridors bedazzled with hyper-pop gems, deconstructed club spikes, and twitchy 2-step beats.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunicating with my own spirit and sense of self propelled so much of this music into existence!\u201d Self told Rewire festival<\/a> last year of the album\u2019s achingly beautiful falsetto opening track, \u201crespite for the tulpamancer.\u201d The song references the cultural practice thought to be derived from Tibetan Buddhism, which involves the creation of and communication with multiple tulpas, or spiritual beings that one thinks into existence. While tulpamancy is both deeply complex and deeply personal, the album seemingly harnesses similar feelings of plurality through its communion with gone-but-not-forgotten \u201c<\/a>trans or queer ghosts,\u201d<\/a> a guiding force that positions the album as a \u201csonic shrine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of Polari<\/a>\u2014a form of cant or slang that originally developed in the UK within queer subcultures\u2014helps to cement this communion, while threading the needle back to Self\u2019s previous offerings and long-running interest in the political and radical potential of the human voice. On respite, songs are sung in English, Latin, and Polari, and run the gamut from the virtuosic to the uncanny: Quasi-devotional vocals and chandelier-shattering runs merge with digitally altered cyber-human cut-ups and poetic spoken word passages, like the medieval-troubadour-conjuring \u201cgaolbreaker\u2019s dream.\u201d Meanwhile, the monumental \u221e (the mathematical symbol for infinity, or the \u201clemniscate,\u201d a recurring motif in Self\u2019s work) stirs somber choral singing into a distortion-caked bad trip that toggles between the angelic and the truly nightmarish. There\u2019s also naked beauty and 2026-appropriate yearning<\/a> via the Baths-assisted candlelit pop ballad \u201cThe Thief\u2019s Journal,\u201d plus a buttery piano-soul link-up with Geo Wyex on \u201calphabet\u2019s chant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the LP\u2019s tracks\u2014like the fragile \u201cNanti Polari,\u201d on which melancholy strings are woven into operatic Polari singing from Polish soprano Iwona\u2004\u200bSobotka\u2014project a detached classical splendor or pop coolness that belies their upfront lyrics, speaking to the duality at the heart of the album. \u201cThese songs sound gorgeous,\u201d said Self in the LP\u2019s accompanying press statement. \u201cBut they\u2019re all about police, eating ass, and sex work, these profane things. I wanted to find a way to breathe life into this act of hiding the explicit in the quotidian-sounding atmosphere of pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n NOW PLAYING
\n PAUSED\n <\/p>\n

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by <\/p>\n

\n .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBUM OF THE DAY Colin Self, \u201crespite \u221e levity for the nameless ghost in crisis (Expanded)\u201d By April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-292897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}