Deluxe 2LP Three-sided with etched artwork on Side 4. Raven Chacon begins by listening. The Diné composer, born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation in 1977, describes himself simply as a listener, but the attention he gives to sound encompasses far more than what's immediately audible—it includes what has been deliberately silenced. Yucca Alta Records now presents the first vinyl edition of Voiceless Mass, a three-sided double LP featuring Chacon's 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning title work alongside two other compositions performed by Present Music. Originally released on CD by New World Records in April 2025, this limited vinyl edition includes artwork etched directly into the fourth side, making each copy unique. A student of James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, and Wadada Leo Smith at CalArts, Chacon has emerged as one of the most quietly radical voices in contemporary music, his work continuing a lineage that includes Karlheinz Stockhausen, noise artist Merzbow, and No Wave composer Glenn Branca, while remaining unmistakably his own.

Biyán (2011), for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion, takes its title from the Navajo word for song and reflects on the function of singing in Navajo ceremonies, where repetition can continue throughout the night. The work's three movements organize themselves in a block structure of repeating patterns, allowing listeners time to dwell in the mesmerizing soundscape and focus on constantly changing micro-acoustic details—what sounds at first like stasis reveals itself as perpetual transformation. Owl Song (2021), for sinfonietta and voice, acknowledges the nocturnal hunting bird considered by some to have the ability of shapeshifting. Chacon writes that instrumentalists "cycle through a variety of timbres on their instruments, often with individual speeds to traverse the composition. They are sometimes guided by a voice, her distance unmeasurable from themselves, and must call out not to locate her position, but to see if she is still with them." The work creates spatial disorientation, a sense of being lost in darkness with only sound as guide.

Voiceless Mass (2021), the album's centerpiece, was commissioned by the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ, Plymouth Church UCC, and Present Music, composed specifically for the Nichols & Simpson organ at The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee. The commission offered Chacon something rare: the opportunity to address the Catholic Church's atrocities against Indigenous peoples—particularly residential schools, forced assimilation, and systemic abuse—directly within the walls of the sanctified institution responsible. "This work considers the spaces in which we gather, the history of access of these spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit," Chacon writes. Though the title refers to a Mass, there are no vocal parts, no audible singing. "In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, Voiceless Mass considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power." The piece understands that representation without restitution is performance, that being allowed to speak inside the master's house doesn't mean the house stops being the master's. The organ becomes the vehicle for this critique, its pipes filling the cathedral with sound that references liturgical tradition while refusing its consolations.

The Pulitzer Prize committee recognized Voiceless Mass in 2022, making Chacon the first Native American composer to win the award in its 105-year history. The jury called it "a mesmerizing, original work that evokes the weight of history in a church setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting, visceral impact." This vinyl edition, pressed in a limited run by Yucca Alta Records, treats the album as both document and object. The three-sided configuration leaves the fourth side available for artwork etched directly into the vinyl, visible when the record catches light, turning each copy into a unique physical iteration of Chacon's interest in the material conditions of listening. Present Music brings decades of experience commissioning and interpreting new work to these recordings, navigating Chacon's complex scores with precision that never feels clinical, finding the emotional core without sentimentalizing. The double LP format allows the music to breathe across sides, creating natural breaks that function almost like movements. By the time the needle reaches the etched fourth side, the silence that follows Voiceless Mass has already said what it needed to say.