Based in Brooklyn, the classically trained singer and pianist Lia Ices has released two albums on Rare Book Room Records: Necima (2008) and Known Unknown (2011).
The 11 contributors to our 13th compilation CD were invited to turn one of the predictions of 16th-century astrologer Nostradamus into a brand-new song. Most scholars agree that his four-line prophesies (quatrains) are more poetic than prophetic, utilizing language that is oblique enough to support any number of different interpretations. The resulting tracks—some somber, some surprisingly buoyant—all celebrate that poetry, reveling in the ambiguity of their source material while allowing it to reverberate in a musical context.