Shortly before her 60th birthday, Meredith Monk's eighth album, a significant work of contemporary music, was released by ECM. For nearly four decades, this outstanding interdisciplinary artist has questioned musical categories and transcended stylistic boundaries. 'mercy' was first presented in the US as a multimedia stage project, created by Monk in collaboration with renowned installation artist Ann Hamilton. However, the album goes far beyond a mere soundtrack: some of the compositions were written before Monk and Hamilton began their collaboration. The sequence and material of the stage version have been extensively restructured, with numerous alterations, condensations, and expansions of forms. At the heart of Monk's work lies singing and the exploration of the human voice in all its range. Her pioneering work in the field of so-called extended vocal techniques has profoundly influenced the musical output of many subsequent artists. When she began her vocal experiments in 1965, this field was virtually unexplored. Since then, traces of her work can be found in a wide variety of musical genres, and she has influenced artists such as Joan La Barbara, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson and Björk – the latter of whom has recently included Monk's 'Gotham Lullaby' in her live program.
