Schoenberg on the Beach
Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose
Little i Music LIM CD 111 (littleimusic.com)

Balls of Simplicity – Jeff Lederer Notated Works 1979-2021
Morningside Tone Collective
Little i Music LIM CD 112 (littleimusic.com)

In 1909 the intrepid Arnold Schoenberg brought the hammer down on the Wagnerian concept of tonality, in favour of musical expression that abandoned tonal centres, key signatures and traditional application of harmony. He did so through a system in which all the notes of the chromatic scale were assigned equal importance. The result was music that sounded so radical to the ear that one critic went as far as describing the sound of Schoenberg’s music as if “someone had smeared the score of Tristan whilst the ink was still wet”. 

In his closest approximation (in deferential homage really) of what might be Schoenbergian music – or rather how the composer might have responded to the more salubrious climate of his music today – Jeff Lederer gives us – what else? – Schoenberg on the Beach. Joined by his wife, the fearless, boundary-blurring vocalist Mary LaRose, Lederer combines the burnished sound of his clarinet and high-wire act on the flute, with LaRose’s often-dissonant vocal glissandi. Together Lederer and LaRose, and other instrumentalists, have deeply interiorized these works and offer wonderfully idiomatic performances, bringing to life Lieder by Schoenberg, Webern and others. With lyrics from Goethe, Rilke, Nietzsche, et al, highlighting the musically radical Second Viennese School, all of which feed Lederer’s and LaRose’s equally radical artistry. While Lederer’s arrangements and LaRose’s interpretations respectively, are likely to have as many naysayers and refusniks as Schoenberg’s Three Pieces for Piano Op. 11 had in its day, songs such as Blummengruss and Summer Evening do thrill. 

Moreover, this repertoire is redolent with outstanding performances by vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, cellist Hank Roberts, bassist Michael Formanek, drummer Matt Wilsson and the redoubtable Marty Erlich on The Pale Flowers of Moonlight. All of this makes this disc unmissable.

Lederer has not been well represented – or so it may seem – solely for his compositions. Balls of Simplicity – Jeff Lederer Notated Works (1979-2021) will certainly remedy that lapse. These five (extended) works for reeds, winds, strings and piano clearly trace the dominant pattern of Lederer’s career, from chromatic Romanticism through atonality to serialism. Persistence of Memory (2015) and the seductive Piano Piece (1979) lay the groundwork for Bodies of Water for flute, cello and piano (2020). The darkest work, Song for the Kallyuga for piano, clarinet, violin and cello (1984) which marks the chemical disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing almost 4,000 and maiming half a million others, is quite the artistic apogee of this album.

John Robertson – Portraits
Bratislava Symphony Orchestra; Anthony Armore
Centrediscs CMCCD32623 (cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/centrediscs)

Kingston-based John Robertson (b.1943) creates colourfully scored, neo-Romantic music that succeeds in sounding freshly minted, avoiding Hollywood clichés or borrowings from other composers. This CD presents six pieces, all but one under 12 minutes long.

Overture for a Musical Comedy, Op.15 evokes, for me, the song-and-dance of a 1930s cabaret. Salome Dances, Op.32 is more subtly suggestive of that legendary unveiling than Richard Strauss’ frenetic version. Cyrano, Op.53 affectionately depicts scenes of love and strife from Edmond Rostand’s classic play.

The Death of Crowe, Op.30 describes an episode in Timothy Findlay’s novel Not Wanted on the Voyage in which Mrs. Noah laments the death of her blind cat’s dear friend. The music is fanciful and poignantly lyrical, featuring an extended clarinet solo wandering over repeated descending strings. The melancholy, perturbed Overture to Robertson’s ballet Lady Jane – A Fable, Op.66 includes, writes Robertson, “various themes that will be heard later in the work.”

The 31-minute, six-movement Suite from Robertson’s opera Orpheus – A Masque, Op.64 suggests that his take on the familiar myth is closer in spirit to that of the irreverent Offenbach than to Monteverdi or Gluck, its insouciant lack of gravitas offsetting the tender beauty of Orpheus’ and Euridice’s love music. (The rocking, bittersweet waltz tune of Dancing in the Elysian Fields has become, for me, a recurrent, invigorating earworm!)

Anthony Armoré, conductor of four CDs of Robertson’s compositions on the Navona label, continues to champion Robertson’s music with enthusiasm, entirely merited.

All we are made of is borrowed
Paramorph Collective
Redshift Records TK534 (redshiftrecords.org)

Montreal-Ottawa musicians and multidisciplinary artists, An Laurence (guitar, voice, etc.) and Kim Farris-Manning (piano, voice, synthesizer, etc.), comprise the Paramorph Collective. “Paramorph” in mineralogy refers to the process of transformation of a mineral through the reorganization of its molecular structure only. Analogously, the collective aims to transform itself and its audience through “rearranging inner feelings or thoughts… seeking new perspectives.” The Collective’s nine-track debut album All we’re made of is borrowed shows the duo in twin roles: music creators and performers of scores by Canadian composers Rodney Sharman and Linda C Smith, and California-based Margot George. 

Smith’s remarkable Thought and Desire is an engaging piano solo until 3’45” when the pianist begins singing in her soft soprano. At that moment the piano’s identity suddenly shifts, its role thereafter is to accompany. It’s a delightful perceptual shift for listeners. Four of the tracks are original works by the Collective, evoking an overall peaceful, soft and layered aesthetic space through spoken word, electronics and guitar-supported song. Margot George’s rousing Fruiting Bodies forms the album’s centerpiece. Farris-Manning’s custom-built organ synthesizer’s sustained chords are animated by Laurence’s crashing electric guitar clusters and sustained single tones. This 21-minute commission presents dichotomic extremes: of sound pressure and distortion, sustained keyboard vs plucked strings – counterpointed by shimmering stacked organ chords evoking ecclesiastical regions.

The album notes ask listeners to reflect on the title – All we’re made of is borrowed – and to hold onto “the time we have left as medicine.”

Live in Toronto
Spindle Ensemble; Evergreen Club Gamelan Ensemble
Hidden Notes (spindleensemble.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-toronto)

Live in Toronto, the 2022 collaboration between the seven-musician Toronto group Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and the UK Spindle Ensemble (violin, cello, piano, marimba), is nothing short of captivating.

Spindle pianist Daniel Inzani’s composition Lucid Living firmly establishes ECCG’s degung gamelan voice, amplified by Spindle’s tight harmonies. Evoking monochrome hues of early morning light, the musical palette is enhanced with the addition of Spindle’s marimba and piano before opening into full daylight. Inzani’s music took me on an impressionistic Joycean journey.

Orpheus by Spindle’s Harriet Riley begins as an homage to Stravinsky’s ballet of the same name. Its Western roots however soon give way to ECCG’s Southeast Asian tones, reminding me of American composer Lou Harrison’s gamelan-centric approach in some of his works. Riley found exquisite ways to blend the 11 instruments at her disposal: the strings (violin and cello) overlap ECCG’s wind (suling, a ring flute) making for an enchanting sonic exchange.

ECCG suling soloist Andrew Timar’s composition Open Fifths: Gardens takes us to the EP’s summit, a work featuring complexity of a kind I associate with the best modal jazz improvisation. The performers play off one another with a sensitivity that finds the fruitful common ground between the musical worlds the two ensembles inhabit. When Timar’s low-sounding suling gambuh invites the cello into the conversation we witness an unanticipated aural blending and the unfolding sound palette celebrates all the voices present.

My only question lies in Open Fifths’ ending. The suspended silence before the last note – reminiscent of a certain Chopin piano Prelude in E Minor – caught me off guard. Open Fifths, like the rest of this EP, is filled with happy surprises.

Composing Israel – The First Three Generations
Various Artists
Neuma 177 (neumarecords.org)

Ten compositions spanning six decades present an overview of “the first three generations” of Israeli composers, variously performed by 24 musicians including members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and five different pianists.

Toccata, Op.34, No.5 for piano (1943) is a wild, whirlwind dance by Paul Ben-Haim (né Paul Frankenburger, 1897-1984), a German refugee who helped found the “Eastern-Mediterranean School” of Israeli composition. German refugee Tzvi Avni (né Hermann Steinke, b.1927) studied with Ben-Haim and dedicated his Capriccio for piano (1955, rev.1975) to his mentor. Like Toccata, it embraces the volatile rhythms of Middle-Eastern music.

Arabesque No.2 for flute and harp (1973) by Ben-Haim student Ami Maayani (1936-2019) mixes Arabic rhythms with glissandi suggesting quarter-tones in its exultation of exoticism. Bashrav for chamber orchestra (2004) by Betty Olivero (b.1954), based on classic Persian music, while clearly Middle-Eastern in mood and materials, is less “folkish,” filled with explosive bursts and sudden silences.

I enjoyed all these much more than the non-Middle-Eastern-sounding piano pieces by Abel Ehrlich (1915-2003), Arie Shapira (1943-2015) and Ari Ben-Shabetai (b.1954) or the electronic collage of Bedouin children speaking by Tsippi Fleischer (b.1946), all dating from the 1980s.

In the 19-minute Wire for soprano and chamber ensemble (1986) by Oded Zehavi (b.1961), Denise Lundine keens a Hebrew poem, her “voice crying in the wilderness” over bursting percussion, the French horn emulating liturgical shofar (ram’s horn) elephantine trumpetings making this, by far the CD’s longest work, also its most “Jewish.”

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Éventail
Heinz Holliger; Anton Kernjak
ECM New Series ECM 2694 (ecmrecords.com)

From one of the most recorded oboists of all time, Heinz Holliger’s newly released album, Éventail, is a colourful exploration of both the vocal and expressive qualities of the oboe and oboe d’amore in early 20-th-century French music. Opening the “richly coloured fan” of little-known French Vocalise-Études by some of the most important French composers including Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Jolivet, Casadesus, Messiaen, Koechlin and Milhaud, Holliger is joined by pianist Anton Kernjak and harpist Alice Belugou.

Characteristic of his specialty in 20th- and 21st-century-works, Holliger’s wide range of extended techniques and tonal texturing shine in Éventail, with gleaming performance and elements ranging from the traditional to the virtuosic. Having had personal relationships with many of these composers, Holliger’s performance provides a distinct approach and understanding of these works while showcasing his artistic personality and flare. 

Beginning with Ravel’s Pièce en forme de Habañera and Saint-Saëns’ Sonate pour hautbois et piano, Holliger and Kernjak set the stage with two standard pieces in the oboe repertoire. Holliger chose some surprisingly slow tempos in the Saint-Saëns yet still showed command over the instrument.

Jolivet’s Controversia and Messiaen’s Vocalise-Étude and Morceau de lecture is where Holliger really shines. Although able to play the standard repertoire well, Holliger’s transcending nature seems to seek out every opportunity to explore and test the technical possibilities of the oboe.

Éventail also beautifully showcases Charles Koechlin, one of the first composers to use the oboe d’amore after the Baroque era, and explores his unique use of muted timbre in Le repos de Tityre, recalling Debussy’s masterpiece for solo flute, Syrinx. Holliger then enhances this mood by transcribing and performing Syrinx on the oboe d’amore.

The album concludes with Robert Casadesus’ Sonate. Originally written for his teacher, Émile Cassagnaud in 1954, Holliger decided to do what his teacher had intended and record this important work, bringing it to life as a standard in oboe repertoire.

Messiaen – Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus
Kristoffer Hyldig
Our Recordings 6.220677-78 (ourrecordings.com)

Another pianist passionate about Olivier Messiaen, has released his recent take on Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, a 20-piece solo piano cycle which – to some enthusiasts – represents a mighty pillar of mid-century modernism. The striking Danish pianist, Kristoffer Hyldig, recorded this disc at Vor Frekser’s Church in Copenhagen during a severe pandemic lockdown in March of 2021, an ideal locale to capture the spiritual and mystical aspects of this music.

Hyldig’s approach is a one of reverence and fortitude. He comes to this work with admiration and a veritable desire to unlock its secrets. One attribute, immediately noticeable, is his command of distinct pianistic colours. He has competently etched out each movement in the cycle, allocating unique profiles, characters and sonorities. Messiaen’s keyboard music responds well to such attention and technical detail. 

This devotional music has become familiar to many 21st-century audiences and divining new identity within such a score can be challenging for any interpreter. Hyldig brings integrity to his performance with an earnest smattering of detail and refinement, through articulation, dynamic shadings and intricate realization of tempo relationships. The savvy listener might also ascertain unique palettes in play, born of northern pastels and Hanseatic hues, gleaned under the high Nordic sun. Compare these to the warmer, deeper equatorial chroma of Messiaen’s southern France and the result bears novel acoustic fruit indeed. In further augmentation of such qualities, Hyldig’s 2-disc release was recorded in the immersive DXD Format.

John Luther Adams – darkness and scattered light
Robert Black double bass
Cold Blue Music CB0067 (coldbluemusic.com)

Renowned award-winning American composer John Luther Adams’ album Darkness and Scattered Light is an unusual one, consisting of three major works for double bass. Two scored for solo double bass and one for bass quintet, each attractive piece is a substantial contribution to the bass repertoire.

Superbly performed by the late bassist Robert Black (1956–2023) these virtuoso works call not only on the majesty of the lowest of the string section, but also on its ability in the right hands to evoke near-orchestral multi-part textures – as in the serene solo Three High Places (2007). Fascinatingly, all the sounds in this work consist of bowed natural harmonics or open strings, the musician’s fingers never touching the fingerboard.  

Darkness and Scattered Light (2023), Adams’ 16’32” single-movement score for five double basses (all played by Black), wades deeply into orchestral textures, employing both the harmonic and subharmonic overtone series. Marked by merging long tones transfigured onto a tonally ambiguous harmonic terrain, Adams’ aesthetically sophisticated, historically informed work is masterful.

The other solo is Three Nocturnes (2022), evoking the dark side of the harmonic series and of nature herself. Dedicated to Black, he gave the premiere outdoors, amid red rock canyons.

Composer Michael Gordon wrote that Black “has single-handedly reinvented the technique and repertoire of the double bass, bringing it bursting into the 21st century.” Black’s no-nonsense, committed, masterful playing of Adams’ music is his beautiful, lasting legacy.

Edward Cowie – Where the Wood Thrush Forever Sings
Anna Hashimoto; Roderick Chatwick
Metier mex 77104 (divineartrecords.com)

When one walks every morning through wooded areas, one hears the seasons changing in the calls of birds. Spring is as raucous as winter is silent, a muted summer leads to the random cries of migration in fall. One is hardly likely to find this strange chorale upsetting unless one suffers hypersensitivity to sound, as some poor souls no doubt do. 

Composer Edward Cowie has found the alchemical formula for transmuting various bird cries into duets for clarinet and piano. Played mellifluously on E-flat and B-flat clarinet by Anna Hashimoto, with Roderick Chadwick at the keyboard, this group of four “songbooks” are a series of short explorations of various birds’ musical identities. Hashimoto manages the higher register with accuracy that is sometimes piercing yet never shrill. Chadwick is sure-handed with the understated piano writing. Cowie’s harmonic language is both new and sometimes familiar.

Birds and their environment have inspired composers before now, of course. Beethoven wrote a quartet of characters into the coda of the second movement of his Sixth Symphony, giving the poor clarinetist the role of Cuckoo (which some might find quite appropriate). Olivier Messiaen was noted for his sometimes-verbatim quotes from the aviary, and his Abyss of the Birds is a tour-de-force for solo clarinet. Cowie’s settings do more than quote the melodic arc of any of the 24 birds represented here, but they are meticulously researched, as his field notes in the accompanying booklet indicate. This is his third collection, focused on North American species. Divided over two discs, six species per “book,” the tracks range between two and six minutes. I can’t decide whether it’s better to know which bird is singing as the disc plays or to simply enjoy the walk while trying to guess. 

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Shadow & Light – Canadian Double Concertos
Marc Djokic; Christiana Petrowska Quilico; Sinfonia Toronto; Nurhan Arman
Centrediscs CMCCD 31823 (cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/centrediscs)

Originating in the early 1700s, during the later portion of the Baroque era, the concerto presented composers of the time with an instrumental compositional structure (a formula if you will) perfectly suited to feature an instrumental soloist. A double concerto, therefore, shines the spotlight equally on two soloists, accompanied by different aggregations, providing composers with another voice of possibility to help realize their creative intentions. How nice then, in our time of near constant and rapid change, that this formula is still meaningful and relevant, particularly so in the capable compositional hands of Alice Ping Yee Ho, Christos Hatzis and Larysa Kuzmenko. 

Writing for the pairing of violin and piano (the dependably terrific Christina Petrowska Quilico and violinist Marc Djokic backed capably by Sinfonia Toronto under the direction of conductor Nurhan Arman), the aforementioned compositional triumvirate bring Shadow & Light to life with influences ranging from Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, to Hitchcock foil Bernard Herrmann and the author Jules Verne. If the range of this description sounds expansive and beyond categorization, that’s because it is! The result, released on Centrediscs and supported by any number of Canadian arts-based granting agencies, is a truly post-modern affair that plays in the margins that lie between the binary of the traditional double-concerto form and a set of influences that escape categorization. Whatever the conceit, the result is a satisfying and extremely fine recording that expands the canon of both Canadian composition and the rare double-concerto pairing of violin and piano for future repertoire consideration.

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Frank Horvat – A Village of Landscapes
Sébastien Malette (bassoon); Allison Wiebe (piano)
I Am Who I Am Records (frankhorvat.com)

I’ve reviewed several albums by prolific Toronto composer and pianist Frank Horvat for The WholeNote. His often Romantically inclined, emotionally charged music often also employs a dizzying array of heartfelt, compelling extra-musical themes. These range from the personal (love, mental health), to the social (environment, social justice), and a combination of the two (dealing musically with pandemic isolation). 

A Village of Landscapes, perhaps his 21st album, features a suite of 13 compositions stylishly and convincingly performed by bassoonist Sébastien Malette, in five movements accompanied by Allison Wiebe on piano. The 13 pieces are furthermore divided into three mini-suites: for bassoon with piano, unaccompanied bassoon and bassoon with electronics.

For example, the atmospheric movement Smoking Hills is scored for hazy basso profundo contrabassoon sounds and bass-heavy piano, while Sharbot Lake features a continuous high bassoon melody over shifting, phasing synth chords. Top of FormTop of Form

In this album Horvat’s thematic inspiration was supplied by photographs of places in the Canadian landscape by Michelle Valberg, representing each of the country’s ten provinces and three territories. Horvat writes, “Our present world is at a precipice when it comes to protecting our natural resources, so as an artist, I feel I have a duty to have my compositions reflect this.

“The bassoon is a VERY versatile instrument. It has a wide range of notes, timbre contrasts and dynamics,” avers Horvat. In A Village of Landscapes he successfully explores many less-known characteristics of the instrument, working against stereotypes of buffoonery and jollity that too often plague the bassoon.

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Graham Campbell; Palms Upward
Various Artists
Independent (grahamcampbell.ca)

Graham Campbell is a good composer. His music is open-hearted and enjoyable to listen to. There is no apparent need to shock or jar the listener, while there is every success in moving them or bringing them peace. Call me jaded or just old, but if someone writes well, stays within conservative conventions of metre and tonality, whose sincerity of expression is their primary calling card, I’m on their side. The music is pleasing, while not especially haunting or challenging.

Pianist Angela Park provides beautiful colour on many of the tracks, most especially in the haunting Lost Souvenir, a movement from an unnamed larger work. Violinists Mark Fewer and Valerie Li, violist Caitlin Boyle and cellist Amahl Arulanandam join her for three brief pieces for piano quintet: Between Breaths, Snow Rider and Dive. Whether out of modesty or budget concerns, the digital release includes no accompanying booklet. 

Palms Upward, the title track, might have been commissioned by or written for Graham’s father, clarinetist James Campbell, but without liner notes one is left guessing. It’s an unusual grouping that works well: clarinet with violin, viola, double bass and guitars (Rob MacDonald and Tracy Anne Smith of ChromaDuo). 

The track titles are evocative enough to allow the imagination room to fill in the blanks. Still, I’m curious to know a little more, like what does Driftless Sea mean? This is the final track, featuring klezmer-coloured clarinet playing a folk-like melody alongside a string quartet, guitars (played by Campbell fils) and Jaash Singh on darbuka. Kettle Vapours (Park on solo piano) might suggest reflections on watching a pot boil, but it’s more eventful, more solid than vapid. Barely an intermezzo, it works. 

Double bass playing is ably supplied by Charles James on several tracks, while the composer supplies guitar and piano on tracks 7 and 8 respectively.

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David Jaeger – Chamber Works for Viola
Carol Gimbel; Marina Poplavskaya; Cullan Bryant
Navona Records NV6528 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6528)

Toronto composer and music producer David Jaeger (b.1947) has had a long, illustrious career. A founding member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, he enjoyed an influential four-decade career at CBC Radio commissioning hundreds of compositions and producing well over a thousand national broadcasts championing contemporary concert music from Canada and beyond.

Jaeger’s early 1970s show Music of Today kindled my growing interest in new developments in classical music. My interest was further stoked by his long-running, influential new music program Two New Hours (1978-2007) on which I occasionally appeared.

When not in the studio or on international juries, Jaeger always found time to pursue his own composing. And the viola appears time and time again in his scores. For example, the early Favour (1980) for viola and live digital delay controlled by the performer was written for the outstanding Israeli violist Rivka Golani, followed by Sarabande (1993).

The five works on Chamber Works for Viola continue Jaeger’s exploration of the expressive possibilities of the instrument, here played by New York/Toronto violist extraordinaire, Carol Gimbel. 

My recital favourite is the expressive viola solo White Moon Legend. Exploiting the instrument’s wide range of bowed cantabile and pizzicato effects, Jaeger’s melodies appear in contrasting tessituras, heightening the work’s dramatic narrative arc.

Gimbel’s passionate advocacy of this music is amply supported by the warm and husky tones of her ex-Emmanuel Vardi 1725 viola. Also a great support is the attractive recording which details the viola within natural-sounding room sonics graced with a satisfying bloom of reverb.

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Beatings Are In the Body
Beatings Are In the Body
For the Living and the Dead (beatingsareinthebody.bandcamp.com)

The self-titled debut release Beatings Are in the Body is by the gifted experimental Canadian performer/composer trio of Erika Angell (voice/electronics/bells), Róisín Adams (piano/Wurlitzer/voice/sticks) and Peggy Lee (cello/voice/sticks). Their name is drawn from a work by Canadian poet Meaghan McAneeley, who contributed the release’s artwork/design and texts for two tracks. The musicians explore and draw their compositional/performance inspiration from how the physical body carries and stores wide-ranging memories, pain and emotions throughout life, in acoustic and electroacoustic, atonal and tonal compositions, jazz, songs, poetry and free improvisations. 

The opening track, Blurry, features accessible tonal piano-chord rhythms, vocals and moving cello interludes between and during spoken/sung phrases. Time for experimental new music with electronics, spoken/sung at times noisy vocals and instrumentals in Triploop. Superimposed modern electronic sound effects with acoustic instruments are especially memorable. Like a Deepness/Let Go is a contemporary atonal tragic almost-pop song with vocal solo with warbling, piano chords, melodious cello countermelody and emotional loud high vocal and cello unison held-notes at longer phrase beginnings. A subsequent faster section suddenly goes back to a slow dramatic grim song with the repeated lyric “Let go” to abrupt an ending. Intense, the too-short free improvisation, Rhiza, is like pain at its painful worst with sound effects like crashing dishes, improvisational vocal sounds and cello string bangs.

The 12 diverse emotional tracks flow seamlessly when listened to in order. Random track listening offers a different sound scenario. The tight, respectful performances create inspiring, not depressing, music!

LAND SEA SKY for Raj Sen
Experimental Music Unit
Independent (experimentalmusicunit.bandcamp.com)

Experimental Music Unit is a trio based in Lekwungen Territory (located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island) consisting of Tina Pearson (flute, accordion, voice), George Tzanetakis (clarinets, saxophones) and Paul Walde (bass guitar, percussion). EMU specializes in exploratory music and sound practices grounded in ecological studies, focused improvisation and collaboration. Their latest audio project, LAND SEA SKY released as a 38-minute EP, reflects all those interests.

The EP is the musical realization of a text score by Pearson, composed during the winter of 2020-2021. Like so many, EMU was frustratingly isolated during the COVID pandemic. While they could meet remotely through online platforms, most of all they longed to make music together again outdoors. 

LAND SEA SKY was their response. Recording their parts in the studio, EMU however imagined they were actually playing together at Finnerty Cove, a rocky outcropping on the east shore of Lekwungen territory on the Salish Sea. The lapping waves, gulls and other oceanic sounds captured on the field recording eloquently places the trios’ musicking in this site-specific sonic space. 

I found the most magical moments happened when the trio entered into a dialogue with the oceanscape, or when the latter emerged into the sonic foreground – a startling transformation. Starting softly, leisurely, the ever-shifting, subtly articulated interplay between the human trio and the Salish Sea’s many voices reflects EMU’s deep connection with and respect for the place where they “live and play.” 

LAND SEA SKY proved to be more than a purely musical experience: it’s a timely reminder that the root of all human song is in nature.