Dylan Mattingly: The Wild Heart (Vinyl)

Nonesuch Records releases The Wild Heart, the label debut from composer, Dylan Mattingly, performed by Contemporaneous with conductor, David Bloom, and vocal soloist, Iarla Ó Lionáird.

The vinyl edition features two movements - ‘Ulysses Dances’ and ‘Last Dance’ - from the five-movement work, The Transmutation Notebooks, as well as Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things). The CD features all five moments of The Transmutation Notebooks as well as Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things.

The two pieces on this album sprang from Mattingly’s six-hour epic composition History of Life, which, as Jake Wilder-Smith says in his album liner note, “weaves together a wide array of traditions, styles, and source materials, chief among them Homer’s Odyssey and Charles Darwin’s account of his five-year expedition aboard the HMS Beagle.” The Transmutation Notebooks takes its name from Darwin’s journals of his travels along the coast of South America. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things) was written during the first year of the pandemic, while wildfires blazed in Mattingly’s native California.

Mattingly says, “The goal of my music is to give us an experience of the things we love most about being alive in this world, in a way that reminds us how damn beautiful they are and how much we can love.” He continues, “We don’t have a lot of opportunity in life (or in art) to focus on, to yell for joy about, the things we really love about this world. This music tries to give us that chance as clearly and strongly as possible, to remind us that this is worth it, to allow us to be swept over by the massive force of waves, to be small in the face of a massive, beautiful universe.”

‘Mattingly’s score does nothing but linger, luxuriating in the good and the bad, the spiritual and the doubtful, and above all the ecstatic … [he] has internalized a wealth of musical styles … But Mattingly doesn’t quote. Instead, his influences surface subtly, abstracted in, say, a rhythmic gesture. In the end, the language is entirely his own.’ - New York Times

“Dylan Mattingly is a true original whose music fills the listener with a sense of overflowing abundance. Dylan’s default mode is intense, ecstatic: his music clangs and chimes, and its resonances seem to linger in the ear long after the physical sound ceases. Events can feel like they're moving in slow sync with the rhythms of the celestial orbs but then will break out into some euphoric pagan jig. He’s a genuine American Maverick in the true sense of the term.” – John Adams

Release Date: 26th June 2026

Tracklist:

1. The Transmutation Notebooks: I. Ulysses Dances
2. The Transmutation Notebooks: IV. Last Dance
3. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things)

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