Katta: Vox Organi

My new album Vox Organi (The Voice of the Organ) combines original instrumental pieces with vocal compositions based on old spiritual texts and prayers. I've called the instrumental pieces Meditations. They were written in my 'home' church, St. Salvator's in Prague, where I experimented with organ sounds and the possibilities presented by the mechanical tract of the instrument, which enabled me to create various sonic effects which in places are more reminiscent of electronica than an 'analogue' Baroque instrument. One of my ambitions is to show that the organ, as I like to say, is the world's oldest synthesiser.

The Meditations were originally written for Prague's multimedia Signal Festival in 2018. Reviewers of that festival performance remarked on the physical force of the pieces, how they fill the space and reverberate in the body of the listener, as well as noting their similarities to ambient music, noise, sound art installations, and post-Cage avant-garde composition.

These Meditations are complemented on the album by sung pieces based on spiritual motifs, and this combination of instrumental and vocal pieces creates Vox Organi, my first album of all-original compositions. Recorded during and after the pandemic, the album is released this spring on Emika Records, a label run by the artist Emika, a long-established name in the world of electronic and experimental music.

The album was recorded at St. Salvator's Church in Prague. All the sounds you hear come exclusively from the organ and have not been electronically manipulated in any way.