Olagón: a Cantata in Doublespeak is the newest album from multiple Grammy Award-winning chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird. The project finds the innovative new-music sextet collaborating with vocalist Iarla Ó Lionaird of the Irish supergroup The Gloaming; Princeton-based composer-fiddler Dan Trueman; and Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon. A modern retelling of an ancient Irish epic, Olagón depicts — not without irony and humor — a privileged “power couple” mired in envy, greed, and adultery, descending into criminality and addiction as Ireland’s “Celtic-Tiger” economy collapses in the early 21st century. Trueman’s score combines elements of the traditional music of Ireland, Norway, and America with the raw urgency and sonorities of contemporary classical music. Muldoon’s text interweaves verses in English and Irish Gaelic, seasoned with word-play and wit. Ó Lionaird, whom The Guardian calls “one of the most dramatic voices in contemporary music,” sings the text in the unique and highly ornamental Irish style known as sean nós. The production incorporates the gorgeous young voices of students of acclaimed Irish sean nós singer Treasa Ní Mhiollain, who also makes an appearance. Eighth Blackbird is “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet” (Chicago Tribune). Olagón is the new-music sextet’s ninth Cedille Records album. Four of their previous Cedille recordings won Grammy Awards in the Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance category.

Four-time Grammy-winning sextet, Eighth Blackbird (8BB), "one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet" (Chicago Tribune), presents the world premiere recording of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang's composition as explanation, based on Gertrude Stein's seminal 1926 lecture of the same name. Called "Super Chamber Music" by David Lang, this multidisciplinary work incorporates elements of chamber music, theater, and performance art; it has the groundbreaking ensemble not only performing the music, but also speaking and singing Stein's text.

For the performance, the 8BB players committed themselves to a rigorous education process, including lessons in acting, diction, and the art of theater. Musical America praised 8BB's live performance of Lang's work as "every bit as witty, circular, and self-referential as Stein's own prose; it's rare, not to mention utterly satisfying, to hear a work that so completely embodies it's text. To invoke Stein, one suspects Composition as Explanation will be a work of our time for many times to come."

In 2016, 8BB asked David Lang to propose a project that they could perform at the Chicago Arts Club in conjunction with the Club's centennial year. In his research, Lang discovered that Stein had spoken at the Club in 1934; this led him to employ Stein's text as the basis for the piece.