Jagjaguwar Shares Ross Gay’s “Poem To My Child, If Ever You Shall Be” (with Gia Margaret)

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17 March, 2021Print

Jagjaguwar Shares Ross Gay's "Poem To My Child, If Ever You Shall Be" (with Gia Margaret)

New Collaboration Previews Dilate Your Heart, First Album of 25th Anniversary Jag Quarterly Series Out March 26th

The Label's First Spoken-Word LP in Decades, Pairing Poetry of Ross Gay with New Music from Bon Iver, Mary Lattimore, Angel Bat Dawid, Gia Margaret & Sam Gendel

Ross Gay & Gia Margaret

Photos by Adewale Agboola & Rachel Winslow

On March 26th, Jagjaguwar will release Dilate Your Heart, an historic new album pairing the resounding poetry of acclaimed author and educator Ross Gay with compassionate and previously unheard compositions from Bon Iver, Mary Lattimore, Angel Bat Dawid, Gia Margaret and Sam Gendel. As Jagjaguwar's first spoken-word record since Robert Creeley's self-titled collection two decades ago, Dilate Your Heart also signifies the launch of Jag Quarterly: a four-part, year-long celebration of community and collaboration, created to mark the venerated indie label's 25th Anniversary campaign, JAG25.

Today, Gia Margaret joins Ross Gay on "Poem To My Child, If Ever You Shall Be," a moving and mystical message to the image of a future newborn, a little dreamer named Sweetness who discovers the beauty of the Earth around them. Like an infant opening their eyes to something gloriously unfamiliar, Margaret's music surrounds Gay's declarations with serene flutters of guitar and cello, capturing the essence of what it means to truly dilate one's heart. The piece follows Gia Margaret's 2020 release of her critically acclaimed ambient album, Mia Gargaret, and she says:

"To me 'Poem To My Child' describes what living is (an extremely complicated concept) to someone, a child, who has never experienced it. With each listen the poem had a more powerful meaning and offered an even more welcoming world for music to live and grow in."

Listen to "Poem To My Child, If Ever You Shall Be" (with Gia Margaret), and watch the visualizer designed by Chloe Hemingway, featuring art from Eric Timothy Carlson: https://youtu.be/Ncd5hxpV2HY

Revisit "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" (with Bon Iver), the epic opening to Dilate Your Heart that The Needle Drop called "incredible" and WNYC praised as both "poignant and sometimes jarringly funny": https://youtu.be/EBWcnGjfadY

On Dilate Your Heart, artists from both within and outside of the Jagjaguwar family come together around the radical empathy espoused by the words of Ross Gay. Just like Jagjaguwar, Gay remains rooted in Bloomington, Indiana, even as his work has created a space that is open to all and teeming with life. The phrase "Dilate Your Heart," however, doesn't stem from any one of Gay's poems, but an oft-used mantra from Jagjaguwar's past. It means to make room, to let more in: new faces, concepts, fears and the endless expansion of one's community. It's a mentality that has guided Jagjaguwar's world-building work over the last quarter-century, and an ethos that owes a psychic debt to the feelings of connection and gratitude that Gay has instilled in the heart of Bloomington and far beyond.

Learn more about Dilate Your Heart, JAG25 and Jagjaguwar's history in their ongoing XagXaguVar zine: http://xag.jagjaguwar.com

For the past 25 years, Jagjaguwar has been home to some of the most mythical artists in music: Angel Olsen, Bon Iver, Dinosaur Jr., Lonnie Holley, Moses Sumney, Jamila Woods, Sharon Van Etten, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and more who have continually reshaped genres and defied canons. But over the course of 2021's landmark anniversary, Jag Quarterly and the overarching JAG25 campaign will show how the label's story is not about individuals or specific releases in its catalog, but rather the ensuing worlds that are built through sharing and collaborating, creating art and community, growing towards the future together. Through collections of music, creative endeavors and partnerships, each of the following Jag Quarterly projects will imbue a different mantra from Jagjaguwar's past with brand new meaning: This is a Mindfulness Drill, Join the Ritual and Sentimental Noise.

Physical copies of Dilate Your Heart will be available on April 9. Pre-order the limited edition, opaque green vinyl here: https://www.secretlystore.com/dilate-your-heart-ross-gay

Dilate Your Heart Tracklist

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (with Bon Iver)

Burial (with Mary Lattimore)

To The Fig Tree On 9th & Christian (with Angel Bat Dawid)

Poem To My Child, If Ever You Shall Be (with Gia Margaret)

Sorrow Is Not My Name (with Sam Gendel)

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