Today, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid shares her “contemplative, restive and resonant” (The New York Times) new album Big Majestic, via New Amsterdam / Eclipse Projects. The album assembles work from Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a public art project which The Washington Post praised as “an intoxicating musical adventure” that reimagines urban parks as interactive soundscapes that move through ambient, jazz, post-rock, and minimalism. Listen and purchase Big Majestic HERE.

With Big Majestic, Reid proves that these works stand on their own divorced from their site-specific presentations, and arranges them to provide an immersive and cohesive arc. Influenced by the likes of Brian Eno, Nala Sinephro, Kamasi Washington, Air, and Floating Points, Reid is bold and graceful, bringing placid atmospheres into ominous complication with the subtlety of the sun moving across the sky. Vivid and evocative, these works capture the essence of the urban oases that inspired them with a magical realist flair.

To bring these disparate sonic locales to life, Reid called upon a cast of luminaries from across the musical spectrum to deliver indelible performances. Kronos Quartet soar above desert vistas on “West Coast Sky Forever,” while Shabaka Hutchings launches into kaleidoscopic shakuhachi and tenor saxophone meditations on “Spiritual Sun” and “Primrose Hill.” James McVinnie embarks on an electrifying synth organ epic on “Blue Sky | Mirrored Glass,” and the otherworldly voice of Lisel beckons the listener into the unknown on both renditions of “Pavilion In The Trees.”

At times mystical and psychedelic or solemn and reverent, Big Majestic is a generous and transportative album. Throughout, Reid revels in the freedom of space and the power of gesture — crafting a marvelous and versatile work that does justice to these beloved and wondrous natural sanctuaries.