Eric Hilton has always been obsessed with compilations. “You bought them to get turned on to new sounds,” he says. “Or you liked the artist compiling it.”
Best known as the co-mastermind behind globally influential downtempo/trip-hop/ambient pioneer Thievery Corporation, Hilton is set to release Midnight Ragas via his Montserrat House label on June 20—a “compilation” album that was never meant to be one in the first place.
“It wasn’t conceptualized as one,” says Hilton, who remains firmly entrenched in Washington, D.C. “The album is a moment of eclecticism. I changed studios and got to work, invited friends to participate—just making music together.”
Bilingual and wildly diverse, all the music on Midnight Ragas came out of the first six months of recording. “Because the process was so collaborative, it ended up being a mix of styles,” says Hilton. “I loved working like that this time.
“Languages are like different settings on a synth—they have a timbre and delivery that either work or don’t within a song. Working with Natalia Clavier, Puma Ptah and Kristina Westernik-Dandridge was so great on this project because I had all these vocal flavors to choose from. There are instrumentals on the record, alongside vocal tracks that vary the mood and pacing. To create an experience, you need to have moments in the song sequence that have a relational mood of some kind—maybe for three tracks—and then slip into another mood.”
Aside from Clavier on vocals, the cinematically sexy “Je Ne T’Aime Plus” taps into the reverb-soaked bliss of D.C.-area duo Infinite Daisy Chains: Westernik-Dandridge on violin and her husband, Ian Dandridge, on guitar.
“Different languages and singers, changing tempos and sounds—there’s a lot of that on this record,” says Hilton. “That’s why it sounds like a compilation album, even though it’s entirely my music.”
We’re proud to premiere the new single from Eric Hilton’s Midnight Ragas.
—Hobart Rowland
