All Men Unto Me - Requiem
All Men Unto Me, the project led by Rylan Gleave, composer and vocalist (most notably in Ashenspire and various Paraorchestra projects), unveils the video for “Lux Æterna,” the second single from their upcoming album, Requiem, which re-imagines an ancient mourning in a real, contemporary setting.
Marrying traditional Anglican soundworlds of electro-pneumatic church organ and stacked choral vocals with extreme sounds, closer to experimental/noise rock and doom metal, Requiem invokes a great and terrible transcendence. The album brings together several collaborators, including members of Ashenspire, Maud the Moth, healthyliving, and Falloch.
Speaking about the new single, “Lux Æterna,” Rylan comments:
“‘Lux Æterna’ condemns the kind of love that demands everything from you. It speaks to feeling the weight of loving someone who can’t — or won’t — understand your sacrifices. I grew up learning that if I forgave others, God might forgive me. That way of thinking lead me to self-neglect in a way I thought was virtuous. There’s a deep suffering in that kind of love and forgiveness; bleeding for someone who doesn’t understand how much they’ve hurt you, forgiving someone solely because you know they’re carrying their own pain. It can make you very small. In the video, the protagonist walks faceless through a dreamscape cemetery into a crypt, towards a death that never comes. The forgiveness might be perpetual, but so is the suffering. There’s no virtue in forgiving everyone but yourself.”
WATCH the Video for “Lux Æterna” Below; FIND the single on your preferred digital platforms.
This album has been developed via Sound and Music’s New Voices program and Paraorchestra’s Musician in Residence position, and will release on the 27th of June via Scottish Label The Larvarium, following a premiere as part of the PRS’s New Music Biennial Festival in Bradford and the Southbank Centre (London). This album was funded by: Paraorchestra, Sound and Music, create:inclusion, and the Make It Happen Fund.
REVISIT the first single, “Sequentia,” HERE
All Men Unto Me is the moniker of musical artist Rylan Gleave, and the most personal side of his multifaceted and rich artistic universe. Already a critically acclaimed and award-winning composer, well known in contemporary classical and alternative musical circles alike for his work with Paraorchestra, class-work ensemble and avant-garde metal outfit Ashenspire, Rylan kickstarted All Men Unto Me in 2023 with debut album In Chemical Transit.
On the debut, In Chemical Transit, Rylan wove together recordings of his voice from over a decade, pre- and during transition, interpreting Cherubino’s aria from Le Nozze di Figaro, critiquing the trouser role and his relationship with his former mezzo-soprano voice. Setting the tone for an uncompromising, complex, and empathetic artistic path reaching beyond personal experience, In Chemical Transit was reviewed as ‘breath-taking’ by Veil of Sound, and ‘a brave, fascinating, and triumphant view of transition’ in The Wire.
Requiem is All Men Unto Me’s second release, re-imagining an ancient mourning in a real, contemporary setting. Taking the broad emotional arcs of the Missa pro Defunctis, these structures pave way for new songs, ruminating on patriarchal power systems and the conditions of transmasculinity within these, through the haze of Queer reverence and forgiveness.
A through line from debut album In Chemical Transit to Requiem is Rylan Gleave’s late-breaking voice, the imperfections that transition has left audible within it. Now 7 years on testosterone, Gleave’s vocal delivery spans the avant-metal shrieks as heard in live performances for Ashenspire, through to agonisingly-faltering falsetto learned for Paraorchestra’s version of Scott Walker’s The Drift for Sky Arts.
Gleave’s venture further away from contemporary classical music is audible on this record, the rotating All Men Unto Me lineup closer to a band than an ensemble, with Scott McLean’s production drawing out moments of both incredible tenderness and hostility.
Requiem is not an album about one person or experience, but a journey through the emotional core of survivorship, Disability, and dignity.
