Today’s Video of the Day is a performance of Freya Waley-Cohen’s ‘spell for the Witch’s Hammer’ from the Manchester Collective. The song closes out the song-cycle which sets poems from Rebecca Tamás’ WITCH to other worldly music. ‘Spell for the Witch’s Hammer’ is about an act of revenge against ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ – a 15^th century treatise on how to identify and kill witches. At the climax, the witches devour the book, then everything.

Waley-Cohen describes the album as a collection akin to a gallery exhibition, where each piece stands alone as a work of art but gains deeper meaning through the context provided by the album, in its entirety. She said: ‘I picture coming across a beautiful old box and opening it to find a different sort of collection, one of otherworldly happenings: of spirits, conjurings, magical objects, and a book of spells.’

The album is performed by Manchester Collective with Héloïse Werner (soprano), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin) Anne Beilby (viola), and Nathaniel Boyd (cello). Mike Skelton recorded the work premiere performance of Spell Book at the Barbican in February.