Klaus Nomi - Za Bakdaz: The Unfinished Opera

Heliocentric
(HCR001: 708527240120)
Release date: 07/06/2009
Genre: Opera, Outer Space

$14.99

1. High Wire 2. Valentine's Day 3. Enchante 4. Overture 5. Cre Spoda 6. Metronomi 7. Intermezzo 8. Za Bakdaz (Live) 9. Perne-a-Gyre 10. Finale 11. Rubber Band Lazer 12. Silent Night

Klaus Nomi's last record. Completed and released by band members after he left the planet.

Klaus Nomi's Unfinished Symphony, or Operetta, or "Space Western". It was also a song from his show, and it's the title of this new release. Loosely translated, it means Heaven, or "Homeland for Nomis". He left behind recordings, photos, and a few videos—but if you had never been in the same room with him... you will never know. A performer of startling vocal ability and even more striking visage, Klaus Nomi had no peer—and due to his untimely departure, the world will never know how he might have applied those talents. When he left Earth on August 6th, 1983, Klaus Nomi took with him the resolution to his Magnum Opus—a work we had always assumed would be titled Za Bakdaz, or "Nomi Homeland". We have decided now, a quarter century later, to present it. What we were not able to do was finish it exactly as he might have; the result is in equal parts a collaboration, a tribute, an historical artifact, and a mystery. The parts are sung in several languages—English, German, French, Italian—and interestingly, his own personal "Nomi Language", which we like to call "the Glossolalia". For that reason the libretto could be open to interpretation. In this incomplete state we are left with a musical Rorschach—possibly not what Nomi fans would expect—but still true to both his classical operatic roots and his fascination with all things experimental and futuristic.