IMAGINAL DISCS:
A FULL-LENGTH ALBUM BY JULIANNA BRIGHT
Named for the blueprint cells present in the butterfly chrysalis, the album Imaginal Discs tells a story of crucible, dissolution, and rebirth. Built on lush vocals and driving rhythms that draw from Julianna’s punk years, the songs together compose a cohesive, energetic body that exalts in the human form and the sensual wisdom of the earth.
But Imaginal Discs is more than an album.
Interwoven with enchantments, layered
percussion, and verdant, devotional lyrics
the eleven songs collected here form a map leading us into and then out of the underworld. They're navigational tools for traversing a dark night of the soul, a vital spiritual text to help us remember a time before we were separated from the sacredness of all things.
Recorded and produced with Julianna's longtime friend and collaborator Alexis Gideon, Imaginal Discs is also a celebration: of the gifts of solitude and connection, of dreamtime and awakening and of the sacred intelligence of the body. It is an ode to Bright's family, a fierce claiming of all her life's most delicate material, and a joyous “YES” to all of it.
Most of all, Imaginal Discs is an invitation. Whatever you’ve longed for in your most childlike hour has never abandoned you. It is your very Divine Self that longs to be remembered.
“I breached your ramparts floating silent as a ghost, enchanted your gatekeeper—left him sleeping at his post—and now I’m just outside your chamber. Won’t you roll away this rock? I’ve landed on your beaches, Baby. I’m howling at your lock.”
“Here. What is present in the stillness? A door to the divine.
Light across a darkened chamber. Build a bridge of your body.”
“She’s sucking seeds through bloody teeth. Her throat proceeds a string of beads. A string of heads She cooly threads, above her breasts as gruesome guests. Her feet are pounding on the earth, until at last She’s given birth. And from Her springs a mouth with wings that’s come to swallow everything…
…She has never set you down. She never forgot your face. Every particle of you is leaning into Her embrace.”
All artwork by Julianna. Photograph by Padraic O’Meara. Above quoted passages are lyrics from the songs Fasten, Beautiful, and Mother.
