Realia is pleased to announce the release of “Seven Swords” (Realia005), the latest work from Milan-based artist and performer Shari DeLorian. With its gritty materiality, intimate atmospheres and liberating digressions—at times dreamy, often bloody, Seven Swords revolves around the impossibility of seeing yourself for whom you really are. It’s a concept album about self-knowledge and the sorrows deriving from the long harsh road to it. Admittedly, the record’s title pays homage to the well-known religious icon “Our Lady of Sorrows”, named also “Seven Swords Mary”. Depicted with seven swords piercing her heart or radiating around her, in popular culture “Seven Swords Mary” is the name by which the Virgin Mary is referred to in relation to sorrows in her life. Reflecting the artist’s peculiar interest in cultic—mostly Orthodox— imagery, in the context of the album the suffering Virgin becomes a universal metaphor for the violent traumas that constitute the self.