Jammed with legalese, the Mueller report might seem unlikely inspiration for art, but for musician Henry Bloomfield '13, buried in the tome was the stuff of a great album. About a year ago, he began mining songs from the report, finding rhythm between the redactions and lyrics within the citations.
The result is his 29-minute operatic concept album Ongoing Matter, in which he sets the report to music over the course of eight songs that tell a story of loyalty and deception. Nearly all the lyrics are drawn from the Mueller report, but the original text is taken apart and reassembled to form a reconstituted version of the story, as though Bloomfield were working with a Mueller report edition of Magnetic Poetry.
So many of the lines, you don't have to dress them up. Your jaw can drop just reading them.
-Henry Bloomfield 13
I wanted to create not a new narrative, but a new narrative storyline emerged from the mixing and matching, Bloomfield said in a recent online interview from his home in New York City. It's not about the Mueller report, it is the Mueller report.
And though the songs contain lines such as The standard set forth in the Justice Manual, and The office transferred responsibility for remaining issues, they're not dull. So many of the lines, you don't have to dress them up. Your jaw can drop just reading them, he says. I was going for the juicy, juicy from the beginning.
Setting the document to music, Bloomfield says, makes it a bit more palatable since it's otherwise quite disheartening. He punches up the lyrics with angular music full of twists and turns, a blend of what he calls upbeat-offbeat pop and industrial funk. Throughout the opera, the listener can never get too comfortable. There might just be a diversion. Any sorts of buzzes and slams and hard-right turns in some ways might reflect just the onslaught of the news cycle or just all these insane details, he says. At times, however, the music takes the edge off the otherwise dreary nature of the subject material.
Watch the music video for the song Somebody Sitting in a Bed Some Place, which shows how Bloomfield drafted the song from the Mueller report:
Video of Somebody Sitting in a Bed Some Place (Footnote Video)
Behind the political maneuverings, and at the core of Ongoing Matter, Bloomfield sees a human story of devotion and betrayal. The characters in the opera correspond to their real-life counterparts but also live in the uncanny valley of a dramatization. The protagonist is Michael (Cohen), who starts the apologue as a loyalist to the character called Prez, and ends it as Prez's fall guy.
[Michael] was kind of an interesting vessel through which to view the tornadoes and hurricanes that were just enveloping around him, Bloomfield says, adding that he wanted the morality tale to go a bit beyond the outlines of Cohen himself. I didn't want to use any of their proper full names, because who in some ways can't relate to just wanting to please someone, and at times even doing things or saying things that you think later, Was I really just trying to get on their good side? How far am I going to go with this?'
Bloomfield had been working on the music that landed on Ongoing Matter for a couple of years but didn't really have a home for it until he started writing the project last fall, beginning with reading the Mueller report twice. By the winter, he was recording the album, vocalizing all of it and performing most of the instrumentalization. He released it on all major streaming platforms on September 16.
He says he'd like to see Ongoing Matter end up on the stage, but can't really imagine when that could next happen. So if there was more of a kind of video/film manifestation of it, that would be incredible. I'm quite open to another sort of direction that someone would be inspired to take it. I would be all ears about that sort of thing, he says.
Listen to Ongoing Matter on Spotify:
From Orientation to a Career Path Bloomfield's background makes him well-prepared to adapt the opera to film, if that's the direction it goes. After leaving Berklee, where he majored in contemporary writing and production, he moved to Seoul, South Korea, to be in a band with musicians he met during his first day of orientation. Everything that came after that day, including Ongoing Matter, he says, wouldn't have happened without that encounter.
During his two years in Seoul, in addition to experimenting with music videos and playing with his band, Bloomfield met people with whom he would later collaborate to create the musical film They Say It's Wonderful. It was a showing of this film that led Bloomfield to a meeting with Baz Luhrmann, who was adapting his movie Moulin Rouge to Broadway and needed new music for a promotional piece for the show. Bloomfield created this piece, which wasn't released because of the cost of acquiring recording rights to all the tracks used. Still, Bloomfield says, it was an amazing experience to work on the project.
One thing Bloomfield says he's learned from the various projects he's worked on is to not judge his initial ideas harshly or be too quick to dismiss them. For example, he started making the music for Ongoing Matter well before he had the idea to create an unconventional opera based on the Mueller report. These seedlings, they should never be thrown out because you just never know where its going to be even six months or, for me, on one of these tracks, a year and a half later, he says.
Related categories:
News
Berklee Today
Related Reading
Berklees Student Newspaper Finds a New Groove The relaunched Berklee Groove website highlights student music and provides industry wisdom, album reviews, wellness advice, and fashion tips.
They Keep Saying: Keira
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
29/09/2026
Oak View Group (OVG) has announced Cisco as an Official Technology Partner, with plans to standardize infrastructure across its venue network on Cisco solutions...
29/09/2026
SportsNet Pittsburgh (SNP) won three honors at the 2026 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
Program awards went to Bucs BP in the Sports Program Live category (produced ...
29/09/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League has announced home openers for all 12 teams for the 2026-27 season, along with a broadcast partnership with CBC under...
29/09/2026
Manifold technologies has been recognized as a contributor to the Media eXchange...
29/09/2026
FuboTV has announced My Local Sports, allowing subscribers in select markets to add their local regional sports network (RSN) as an add-on to a Fubo Sports subs...
29/09/2026
Asian News International (ANI), a wire agency and video news provider based in India, has deployed Grass Valley's AMPP Media Operating System and Framelight...
29/09/2026
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has deployed Ikegami UHK-X600 cameras as part of an upgrade to IP-based production infrastructure. The deployment ...
29/09/2026
REMI, REMCO models will drive the bulk of the broadcaster's NHL productions ...
29/09/2026
Three years in, the facility is supporting more centralized race production, com...
29/09/2026
NBC, Peacock, and NBSN are carrying all four Wild Card series with a production ...
29/09/2026
19 Nonfiction Projects Across All Stages of Production to Receive More Than $1 million in Support as Documentary Film Program Approaches 25th Anniversary
LOS ...
29/09/2026
Two new plug-ins launch alongside updated bundles
Zynaptiq have just announced the launch of two new plug-ins, alongside new and improved versions of two of...
29/09/2026
All-in-one bus processor revealed
Wes Audio's ng product range has come a long way since it was first introduced, and now includes a tasty selection of ...
29/09/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Ikegami announces that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, has chosen Ikegami UHK-X600 camera systems as part of an advance to IP-based operation ...
29/09/2026
Blendkit Offers 20% Discount to Celebrate Crossing 150K Asset Milestone
Brie Clayton September 29, 2026
0 Comments
Blendkit, the largest 3D asset libr...
29/09/2026
Interactive streaming specialist Ease Live supported more than 76.5 million fan sessions across three major European media operators during this summers FIFA Wo...
29/09/2026
Ease Live has added support for VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to its graphical overlay technology, opening up new ways for broadcasters, streamers and rights...
29/09/2026
Rise AV has announced the launch of the inaugural Rise AV Awards, a new global awards programme celebrating the women, advocates and organisations across the AV...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Clear-Com announced that First Baptist Nashville has upgraded its production communications with a Clear-Com intercom solution as part of a comprehensive sanct...
29/09/2026
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Captured Action Shots for Sketch
Brie Clayton September 28, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's portable design and dynamic range...
29/09/2026
Kean Production Services Deploys AJA ColorBox to Deliver Consistent, Accurate Co...
29/09/2026
Berklee Alumni and Faculty Nominated for the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards A total of 28 Berklee alumni and faculty earned nominations across 20 categories this ye...
29/09/2026
Berklee's K-Pop & Beyond Explores Connections Between K-Pop and Hip-Hop Now in its fifth year, the series brings together artists, industry leaders, and s...
29/09/2026
We tend to think we live in a digital world, with hopes and fears around artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, data centres and the next big technolo...
29/09/2026
Today, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Apple relea...
29/09/2026
Final Cut Camera, the professional filming app for iPhone, receives a major upda...
29/09/2026
RT lyric fm is proud to announce the annual Choirs for Christmas competition callout. Warm up those vocal chords and join us on RT lyric fm for a celebration ...
28/09/2026
The NHL has announced Adobe as an Official Creative, Marketing and AI Partner beginning with the 2026-27 season. The partnership will provide the league and its...
28/09/2026
MultiDyne will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (October 5-7, Dubai Exhibition Centre), showcasing an expanded technology portfolio following its June 2026 acquisition of...
28/09/2026
ARRI and HONOR have announced the HONOR Magic9 Pro Max, a flagship smartphone carrying ARRI branding on the device and packaging as the first product-level expr...
28/09/2026
Net Insight has added the Nimbra 1020G to its pan-Asian live media trial network, giving customers and partners in the region a way to evaluate ST 2110 and JPEG...
28/09/2026
Vindral has been named a recipient of a 2026 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the category of We...
28/09/2026
Interra Systems will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (Stand B2-37, Dubai Exhibition Centre, October 5-7), demonstrating its BATON QC platform, ORION monitoring solutions...
28/09/2026
Two years into its new production facility, the TOUR is expanding centralized wo...
Jammed with legalese, the Mueller report might seem unlikely inspiration for art, but for musician Henry Bloomfield '13, buried in the tome was the stuff of a great album. About a year ago, he began mining songs from the report, finding rhythm between the redactions and lyrics within the citations. 
