Watch: New Mimi Goese/Ben Neill Video

Arresting ballet-style interpretative clip for "If You Lie Awake," a song from their forthcoming album.

By Blurt Staff

Mimi Goese (singer/songwriter from ‘80s minimalist punk/pop group Hugo Largo) and Ben Neill (composer/instrumentalist and electro-acoustic inventor) are premiering the video for the track "If You Lie Awake" from their forthcoming record Songs For Persephone (out Aug 30 on Ramseur Records), an album based on their massive multimedia work which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last year.

The album was inspired by new technology and the natural beauty of New York's Hudson Valley, as well as the Hudson River School of painting. Goese and Neill started with a fragment of a different 19th century Romantic piece as the foundation for each of their songs. The songs reflect the increasing influence of classical music in the work of contemporary artists including The National, Sufjan Stevens and the Decemberists. Goese and Neill reference Mahler, Berlioz, Bruckner, and others of the Romantic era to create a new form of lyricism that is contemporary yet colored with the dynamics and patina of the old music filtered through digital processing.