Carlos Surinach – Acrobats of God; The Owl and the Pussycat
Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose
BMOP Sound 1089 (bmop.org/audio-recordings) 

“My music, even the most serious pieces, all suggest, in some way, dance.” After emigrating to New York in 1951, Barcelona-born Carlos Surinach (1915-1997) was commissioned by Martha Graham to create three ballet scores, all presented on this CD.

In the 16-minute Embattled Garden (1957), flamenco-style melodies, rhythms and costumes support a scenario involving Adam, Eve, Lilith and the Devil. Brash, brassy, percussive tuttis are offset by plaintive solos for clarinet, English horn and bassoon in music that’s appropriately steamy, erotic and savage.

Graham called the 22-minute Acrobats of God (1960) “a lighthearted celebration of the art of dance and the discipline of the dancer’s world.” The circus-comedic Fanfare is followed by the first of four Interludes, three of them boisterously brusque, one satirically sentimental. The mock-Arabic Antique Dance spotlights three mandolins and a solo trumpet. Bolero is a halting, ponderous waltz. Flute, mandolins and low brass are spotlighted in Minuet, a parody reminiscent of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. Spanish Gallop’s rapid urgency builds to a clamorous climax, then ends gently with a lyrical cello solo, floating flute and hushed string pizzicati.

The Owl and the Pussycat (1978), lasting 22 minutes, is filled with madcap, playfully pompous music, lots of heavy brass and percussion including a clavinet (electronically amplified clavichord). Aliana de la Guardia recites Edward Lear’s nonsensical poem, while conductor Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project animate all three scores to vivid theatrical life, even without their original visual accompaniments.

Danny Elfman – Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven”; Adolphus Hailstork – Piano Concerto No.1
Sandy Cameron; Stewart Goodyear; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta
Naxos 8.559925 (naxos.com/featurePages/Details/?id=Danny_Elfman_Adolphus_Hailstork) 

This significant release juxtaposes two diverse, American composers and also celebrates multiple Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta and her 125th recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. The two artists represented here could not be more diverse – Danny Elfman, known primarily as a film composer with an array of notable contemporary scores as well as creative relationships with brilliant writer/directors such as Tim Burton… and Adolphus Hailstork, who plumbs the depths of his potent African American heritage to manifest works embodying elements of jazz and blues, as well as motifs of indigenous West African musics. 

Lauded violinist Sandy Cameron is the featured performer in Elfman’s four-movement opus, while phenomenal pianist Stewart Goodyear propels Hailstork’s stirring concerto. Elfman’s Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven” (2017) begins with a movement of stirring beauty, reflected in languid, dynamic bass lines and heart-stopping contrapuntal string work, all embraced in Cameron’s masterful, emotional and facile performance. The subsequent three movements, Spietato, Fantasma and Giocoso; Lacrimae also draw the listener into the miasmatic realm of the fantastic, manifested through the organism of the full orchestra.

Hailstork’s three-movement Piano Concerto No.1 (1992) is magnificently performed by Goodyear. At once delicate and percussive, Hailstork’s writing seems both luminous and yet deeply imbedded in the tangible human experience. His use of brass is incomparable, and although Hailstork and Elfman are two generations apart by birth, the creative output of these two gifted artists is conjoined by American viscera, without becoming static within linear time. The Buffalo Philharmonic continues to thrill as they skillfully move through these difficult pieces, and under the baton of the redoubtable Falletta, the large ensemble moves as one creature – embracing every dynamic, subtlety and nuance.

Room to Breathe
Joseph Swift; Calvin Hu
Independent (swiftbassoon.com/roomtobreathe) 

Given the bassoon’s concise solo repertoire, each recording of new music has the potential to contain a gem that becomes a lasting addition to the canon. Such might be the case with Room to Breathe, featuring American bassoonist Joseph Swift with pianist Calvin Hu. The five young composers on this disc have all created thoughtful, colourful works inspired by the tumult of 2020-2021. 

Swift leads off with Dueling Realities by Chris Evan Hass: well-written in a lyrical, modernist style with nice rhythmic grooves in the outer sections and some beautifully expressive writing in the middle. Gala Flagello’s Mother Time, Father Nature features some extended techniques like inside-piano damping and pitch slides, but the overall effect is lyrical and engaging. Indigo Bunting by Brad Balliett opens with dark, Bartók-like piano chords, the bassoon replying with fistfuls of cascading 16th notes, dealt with expertly by the soloist. At just over 13 minutes, this is the longest piece on the disc, disturbing in its frenetic energy but given ample relief in its more cinematic middle section. I only wish its oddly abrupt ending were more satisfying. Swift by Brian Nabors is written in a rhythmic, modernist style, with hints of Hindemith, perhaps. 

The gem on this disc, for me, is Karalyn Schubring’s i.C.u: an improvisatory, impressionistic duo full of delicate expression. Swift’s playing throughout is articulate and commanding: plenty of technical mastery, with a warm tone and expressive vibrato.

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Chicago Clarinet Classics
John Bruce Yen; Patrick Godon; Teresa Reilly
Cedille CDR 90000 218 (cedillerecords.org) 

Clarinetist John Bruce Yeh is that rare member of the profession: a veteran enthusiast. Having played in one or another capacity as a member of the Chicago Symphony clarinet section since 1977, many of those years as assistant principal, he still found motivation to curate this entertaining and interesting collection of modern to contemporary works for clarinet: with piano, unaccompanied, and in one delightful segment, a duet. All the composers are or were, at one point in their lives, situated in Chicago. 

Best known, most often performed, and possibly the most well-crafted work presented is Time Pieces Op.43 by Robert Muczynski, which is the closing bookend on the disc; the opener is Alexander Tcherepnin’s Sonata in one movement, as obscure as the Muczynski is familiar. The material in between is of varied interest. Pride of place is occupied by neo-Romantic Leo Sowerby’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano H240a (1938). The piece lasts even longer than the title might suggest. It’s how Healey Willan might have written had he lived in Chicago instead of Toronto. Beautiful, if long-winded. In these three, Patrick Godon works wonders at the piano and has effortless musical rapport with Yeh.

Most interesting are the shorter contemporary works: Phoenix Rising by Stacy Garrop, Spirit by Shulamit Ran, both unaccompanied; and especially The Forgiveness Train for two clarinets by Teresa Reilly. Reilly supplies the other voice in her piece, which when it isn’t busy doing very cool things with bends and microtonal slides could almost be an homage to Francis Poulenc’s youthful duet from a century before; I can’t tell whether Reilly wrote one part for B-flat and the other for A clarinet, as Poulenc did. Her notes in the liner make no mention of the earlier work, so I may be imagining things. Anyway, it’s a confident work from someone who by her own admission received no formal training as a composer.

Shostakovich – Symphonies 12 & 15
BBC Philharmonic; John Storgårds
Chandos CHSA5334 (chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205334) 

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12 “The Year 1917” is dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. His intention, as he described it, was to write a symphony depicting the life of Lenin, from youth to member of the new Soviet Society. In the first movement the cellos introduce the distinctive Lenin theme we hear running throughout the symphony in one form or another. Titled Revolutionary Petrograd, it begins with the lowest strings of cello and double bass and evolves into a triumph including tympani and bass drum. Very exciting indeed! The second movement is intended to portray Razliv, Lenin’s “hideout” near St. Petersburg and we hear very sombre music underpinned with a little menace. Typical of Shostakovich. The brief third movement, Aurora, is named after the Russian battle cruiser that began the October Revolution in 1917 by firing a single blank shot at the Winter Palace. The final movement, The Dawn of Humanity, depicting life after the revolution under the guidance of Lenin, its allusions to at least a dozen other well-known works making it a complex puzzle to decipher. As expected, it ends on an exultant note.

The second work is the Symphony No.15 in A Major, Op.141. Written in 1971, in many ways this lighthearted work is his most enjoyable in my opinion. As the old saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This final symphony opens with quotes from the theme of The Lone Ranger (from Rossini’s William Tell) which he develops through the rest of the first movement. Many other quotes throughout the work are further orchestrated and developed by Shostakovich making this a most amusing 45 minutes. The BBC Philharmonic is in fine form under the direction of John Storgårds, who is firmly at home in this repertoire. The SACD sound is outstanding.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann – Recomposed
WDR Sinfonieorchester; Heinz Holliger
Wergo WER73872 (amazon.ca/dp/B0BD2CQLGT?ref_=cb_interstitial_us_ca_desktop_unrec_referrer_google_dp_dp) 

In the context of German post-war avant-garde composition, B.A. Zimmermann was an outlier. Rising out of the chaos of the Second World War, there formed in Darmstadt a radical circle of composers who sought a total break with tradition. Zimmermann reflected these influences at times, notably so in his epic opera Die Soldaten, but stubbornly left himself open to a myriad of influences throughout his career. Consequently, he was viewed with considerable suspicion by the aesthetic hard-liners. As Heinz Holliger explains in the superb program notes accompanying these recordings, “Zimmermann had no aesthetic prejudices. This was of course born of necessity, since he had chosen to earn his money as a house composer for WDR [West German Radio], and not as a piano or composition teacher.” Following the reform of the radio network in 1947, he completed approximately 100 arrangements for live broadcasts from Cologne which until now have languished in obscurity. Now at last, his finest examples in this genre are brought back to life, interspersed with selections of his own symphonic music in performances of the highest quality.

Disc One delights with a predominantly Latin disposition, opening with Zimmerman’s major ballet work from the 1950s, Alagoana. The polytonality and overt Brazilian references à la Milhaud also bring to mind the music of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s folkloristic ballets of the 1940s, though Zimmermann’s chromaticism is considerably more advanced. Lavishly orchestrated arrangements of piano pieces by Milhaud, Villa-Lobos and Casella along with Zimmermann’s own contributions in this genre maintain the bucolic mood. We return to Europe for the closing selections, concluding with Zimmermann’s hilariously parodistic suite of Rhineland Carnival Dances.

Disc Two features Zimmermann’s affinity for Eastern European music in the form of arrangements of works by Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Two substantial Liszt selections feature the dramatic delivery of soprano Sarah Wegener. Zimmermann’s own works include Kontraste (1953), an unashamedly tonal suite of poly-stylistic dances for an imaginary ballet, a brief and breezy Concertino (1950) for piano and orchestra on a theme of Rachmaninoff, and the revised version of his substantial orchestral Konzert (1946/49) in four movements which demonstrates at this early stage of his career the lingering influence of Hindemith.

Disc Three features a grab-bag of arrangements of pleasant tunes by Smetana, Dvořák and Kodály among others. Vater and Sohn (1938), after Paul Haletski, and Edmund Nick’s Blues (1929) in particular are graced with sophisticated orchestrations. Zimmermann’s own music again bookends the disc, pairing the 1953 version of his one movement Symphony, an expressionistic work culminating in a cataclysmic march that evokes the horrors of war (he was drafted into the Wehrmacht from 1940 to 1942), and concludes with his last work for orchestra, the brooding, blues-influenced Stille und Umkehr. This ritualistic work, obsessively centred on a recurring middle D, was composed in 1970 during his stay at a psychiatric hospital. Plagued by recurring depression and rapidly deteriorating eyesight, he committed suicide later that year at the age of 52.

Charles Ives – Concord
Phillip Bush
Neuma 169 (neumarecords.org) 

More than a century ago, a reviewer writing in Musical America described Charles Ives’ second piano sonata, Concord, as “without any doubt the most startling conglomeration of meaningless notes that we have ever seen engraved on white paper.” Completed in 1915, the piece has since come to be regarded as a remarkable example of Ives’ mature style, with each of the four movements representing American literary figures with ties to Concord, Massachusetts. Through its size, technical challenges and overall breadth it’s a far from easy composition to bring off convincingly, but American pianist Philip Bush does so admirably in this Neuma recording. 

The difficult and lengthy first two movements Emerson and Hawthorne are performed with a particular bravado, while the gentler third movement The Alcotts – an homage to the literary sisters – evokes a true sense of nostalgia. The finale, Thoreau, is the slowest movement and the use of a flute in the opening section greatly enhances the wistful, hymn-like mood. The movement ultimately builds in intensity before leading to a surprisingly serene conclusion. Once again, Bush demonstrates an impressive command of this most daunting material.

Coupled with the Concord Sonata is the set of Six Preludes for Piano Op.15 by American composer Marion Bauer written in 1922. Composed in a post-impressionist style, they form an attractive study in contrasts and are a worthy pairing with the Ives. 

Music by an established American composer and by another who perhaps deserves greater recognition – this disc should be a staple in the catalogue.

John Cage – Sonatas & Interludes
Agnese Toniutti
Neuma 172 (neumarecords.org) 

On first hearing John Cage’s prepared piano, his close friend and colleague Lou Harrison is reputed to have exclaimed, “Oh dammit, I wish I’d thought of that!” With his invention Cage had created an instrument that opened the door to a new piano sound world via temporarily altering – preparing – some of the strings by strategically placing bolts, screws, rubber erasers or other objects between them. This gives each prepared string its own characteristic timbre and sound envelope, dramatically contrasting with those left unprepared.

While Bacchanale (1938-1940) was Cage’s first prepared piano composition, it took him another decade to pen his definitive work for it: the hour-long 19-movement Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48). Long viewed by the music establishment as a gimmicky outsider work, it’s become repertoire that new music pianists must reckon with. 

Italian Agnese Toniutti’s admirably sensitive Neuma Records rendition privileges rhythmic precision, a relaxed mood, in addition to a nuanced preparation of the grand piano. This produces a delightfully delicate and rich palette of dynamics, timbres and textures. I particularly enjoyed her effective evocation of a distant bass drum, buzzy gongs and the uncanny aural illusion of the sounds of a bonang and saron (respectively a gongchime and a metalophone instrument in the Javanese gamelan), interleaved with ordinary piano sounds.

There are certainly more dramatic and propulsive recorded performances of Sonatas & Interludes, such as those by (my teacher) James Tenney, Margaret Leng Tan, John Tilbury, Yuji Takahashi and others. On this album however, Toniutti makes a compelling case for a sensitive, soft-grained, quiet-leaning performance which I savoured. I think Cage would have too.

Lei Liang – Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes
Lei Liang
New Focus Recordings FCR360 (newfocusrecordings.com) 

Lei Liang’s disc Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes could easily have opened with the voice of Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise as it sets off to “go where no man has ever gone before.” With a sense of deep mysticism and a philosophical and artistic leap, Liang has first pierced the celestial dome of the sky and then returned to plumb the roar of the deep. 

On the riveting works of this album the composer has created a sonic diptych that beckons the listener to traverse with him from celestial heights to oceanic depths. In the first work – Hearing Landscapes – Liang takes off from the terrestrial promontory guided by the invisible hand (brush, really) of Huang Binhong, a fin de siècle painter, whose landscapes prove inspirational. 

On the opening movement of the work the composer also gives wing to a Chinese folk song sung by the celebrated Zhu Zhonglu from Qinghai, in Northwestern China. The mournful lyric gives way to the jagged soundscape of electronics, becoming eerily speech-like at one point in the second movement, ultimately evaporating by the end of the final part of the work. 

Liang, though, is far from done and the album continues in the raspy rustling of Hearing Icescapes, constructed around field recordings made literally 300 metres below the surface of the Chuckchi Sea north of Alaska. On paper this sounds impenetrable. Nevertheless, the performance of the whole score carries its powerful physical weight, obviating the necessity of narrative clarity.

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Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
Colin Currie Group; Synergy Vocals
Colin Currie Records CCF0006 (colincurriegroup.com/the-music) 

Minimalist music is a late arrival. We owe Steve Reich a debt of gratitude for freeing our ears of the tired refrains of the past. And just in time. Alex Ross recently wrote that Max Richter’s exhalations “exude a gentle fatalism, a numbed acquiescence. Don’t worry, be pensive.” But where Richter’s music lulls, Reich’s stimulates. While we refer to Music for 18 Musicians as minimalist, it certainly doesn’t bear easy reductive analysis. There’s a LOT going on, and on, and on, the timing of the changes cunningly satisfying our love of regularity. Reich’s own breakdown of the piece is included in the liner notes, an additional treasure, a revelation of his process.

What to say about the playing and the production values? Both sound great in my headset, where it seems like they belong. Instruments and voices ranged about me, colours pass by on parade. I would love to hear this live, but I’d be distracted thinking about how tired the players are halfway through the 14 subparts, which run nonstop for just over an hour. I’d be envious, too, wanting to be up there working in the same groove. And no doubt I’d have a crush on at least one of the vocalists way sooner than half-way.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 2022, Swingle-y sung by Synergy Vocals and battened down by the Colin Currie Group, there must be at LEAST 18 of them, just going for it. Put it on and forget it. Waltz through the chores and cares, in time and rhythm, see if you don’t feel better about the dusting or the sorting of the laundry. Or if you have the luxury of leisure, put it on and slip into couch-lock mode: be massaged, be refitted, recreated. Let the shifting shades and steady pulse iron out the folds in your psyche. Go about your day, propelled and sustained.

Spark Bird
Emilie-Claire Barlow
Empress Music (emilieclairebarlow.com)

One of the first delights of many upon opening Emilie-Claire Barlow’s latest album, is the care that’s gone into the design. For those of us who yearn for the days of physical CDs and LPs, Spark Bird delivers with a full package, including charming illustrations by Caroline Brown.  

The second thing that struck me was what a happy album Spark Bird is. For a project that was mostly produced during a pandemic, one might expect a little less joy. But it seems that spending a large part of her time on the west coast of Mexico enabled Barlow to slow down, listen and be inspired by the nature around her. This gorgeous ode to our bird friends is the result. 

The opening tune, Over the Rainbow, with Barlow’s warm, flawless vocals, feels like comfort food in musical form. Drawing on the maestro of joy, Stevie Wonder, and samba-fying Bird of Beauty, is inspired.

Even the melancholic moments can be uplifting when they’re as musical as Skylark, the Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer classic. The arrangement is a masterclass in how to reharmonize interestingly without venturing too far from the original. Credit for it goes to Reg Schwager (Barlow’s long-time collaborator and guitarist) and Steve Webster (who mixed and mastered the album) as well as Barlow herself. Coldplay’s heartbreaker, O, is no less masterfully rendered, courtesy of Amanda Tosoff’s piano playing and arranging, Drew Jureka’s strings and Rachel Therrien’s haunting trumpet solo. 

It’s been five years since Barlow graced us with an album, but she’s been anything but idle. As head of her own record label, Empress Music, plus half of the duo, Bocana, that’s been steadily releasing singles, Barlow is a busy lady. So, as terrible as a worldwide health crisis is, the fact that it enabled artists to slow down, smell the roses – and listen to the birds – is something for which we can be grateful. 

Playing With Fire
Jane Bunnett & Maqueque
Linus Entertainment 270788 (janebunnett.com) 

Innovative and consummate reed player Jane Bunnett has long been considered an unofficial Canadian Jazz Ambassador – particularly with regard to her deep relationship with Cuba and its music. The founding of Maqueque, a burning, all-female ensemble, occurred a decade ago, following a jam session in Havana with an array of talented, musician/composers and graduates of the Cuban Conservatory. The seasoned, award-winning group has travelled the world, and now includes vocalist Joanna Majoko from Zimbabwe, as well as artists from the Dominican Republic, Latin America, Spain and Lebanon. Produced by Larry Cramer, this latest release is beyond stunning.

First up is Human Race (Bunnett/Grantis), a solid groove replete with a facile soprano solo from Bunnett and fine support from bassist Tailin Marrero and Donna Grantis on electric guitar. A standout track is Bud Powell’s Tempus Fugit, featuring pianist Dánae Olano as well as gymnastic vocal scat sections from Majoko and Bunnett on flute. The lighter-than-air Daniela’s Theme, composed by and featuring Olano on piano, with her sister Daniela on violin, also includes a fine group vocal accenting traditional rhythmic motifs. Turquesa/Turquoise (Bunnett/Grantis) is a percussive, vocal and lyrical tour de force replete with another fine solo/call and response between Bunnett and Majoko.

Other delights here include Marrero’s Bolero a un Sueno, a ballad of rare luminous beauty and Charles Mingus’ Jump Monk – marvellously arranged to reflect upon and celebrate Monk’s and Mingus’ mutual quirky approach. Percussionist Mary Paz is absolutely incendiary on this track. The closing title song, also written by Bunnett and Grantis, features the ensemble in a composition of complexity and multiple musical motifs, coalescing in an exuberant expression of energy, power and pure joy.

Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol.1
Astrocolor
Amelia Recordings AML0012CD (astrocolormusic.com) 

Fittingly timed with the extraordinary events taking place in regards to space travel at the moment, this latest record by Western Canadian Music Awards Instrumental Artist of the Year, Astrocolor is a perfect spacey, otherworldly musical foray. A mellow, ear-pleasing journey is exactly what these tunes call to mind, with an additional contagious repetitive rhythmic groove that just leaves the listener wanting more. With a lineup of great musicians such as Neil James Cooke-Dallin on synths, guitar, etc., Andrew Poirier on guitar, William Farrant on bass to name a few, these original compositions are propelled to great new heights. 

Astrocolor has managed to create a completely new niche for themselves in the jazz world, “blending elements of jazz, psychedelia and electronica — …resulting in the aptly dubbed [genre] ‘AstroJazz.’” The feeling throughout the album is as if you’re straddling the border of the modern and new, the traditional and contemporary; floating in this pleasant, almost trance-like musical state of mind that you don’t want to emerge from. It’s a complete, immersive musical experience quite unlike anything else, where the psychedelia of the past meets with the technology of the here and now. “Moonlighting imagines an exploratory trip into deep space… recalling the influence of late 90s electronic acts…” through layering fantastic synthesizer melodies and programming over a traditional band setup. For those who have been itching for something completely new and unique, this is the find you’ve been looking for.

Underdog
Redline Trio
Chronograph Records CR 102 (redlinetrio.com) 

Between the self-deprecating title Underdog and the extinct Dodo bird with one leg cut off as a cover image, the message being beamed at the listeners antennae could well be: “Help! We’re stuck in the past.” In truth, however, the forward-thinking musicians of the Calgary-based Redline Trio and their celebrated British Columbia associates, present their set, tongue firmly in cheek. The only thing that this music harks back to is a kind of creativity sans gratuitous virtuosity, which is often seen as a thing of the past.

Unfolding in six short songs, each with a simply (sometimes) evocative title, is the imaginative music captured on a recording of considerable creativity. Composed by all the band members – saxophonist Mark DeJong, bassist Steve Shepard and drummer Jeff Sulima, and guests, trumpeter Brad Turner and pianist Steve Hudson – the musical stream of ideas unfolds with energy and vitality.

The Redline Trio is harmonically anchored by pianist Hudson and the horns soar with acoustically aerodynamic figures and patterns, gliding along nicely. Shifts occur through rapid changes in direction of rhythmic temperature. (Cue No Limes for Jeffery, The Waltz and the album’s pinnacle Underdog that closes the set.)

The group’s source of inspiration is certainly swing and time, and there is plenty of this reverberating throughout the recording. But the music here bodes well for the future of jazz.

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Ch’val
André Duchesne
ambiences magnetiques AM 271 CD (actuellecd.com) 

André Duchesne, as he tends to do, manages to accomplish something resembling complete expressive purity on Ch’val. It feels like a deeply personal project, with Duchesne himself being responsible for every instrument, click, clack, whisper, wander and runaway brushstroke the listener can perceive. Guitar notes in the left channel dissolve in the mix, as if muttering something under their breath, or a notion abruptly turning into an afterthought. Freewheelin’ ride cymbal grooves in the right channel are aborted on a snare hit, the upbeat a helium balloon with a combusting string. There is a charming baldness to the all-around sonic stew, with a notable scarcity of studio effects imposed on Duchesne’s musicking, which makes every utterance completely unmistakable. 

This stripped-back approach makes this virtual rock band (as Duchesne puts it) reminiscent of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time ensemble, particularly with the polyphony created by the sharp guitar and drum tones. So many sounds are in the forefront, and yet there is a beautifully intricate organization to the soundscape. The presence of transparency and humility Duchesne creates is quite sobering, allowing the entire process to be laid bare in the product. Perhaps most astonishingly, this act of constantly layering numerous takes on top of each other never compromises the music’s sense of spontaneity, and certainly doesn’t take away from the listener’s feeling of adventure on this glorious odyssey.