Colin Stetson. New History of Warfare Vol. 2: Judges.
Constellation Records CST075.
Saxophonist Colin Stetson’s solo outing displays his interest in multiphonics, spiralling repetition, and circular breathing. Inviting comparison to veteran Toronto player David Mott, Stetson’s playing exhibits an even coarser and more carnal tone than that of his forerunner. His sturdy, concise pieces seem to derive much from the energy of rock. The thick saturated texture of his playing has all the urgency of an overdriven shred-fest blasting from a cranked-up amp, but it is barbed with biting nuance. Red Horse (Judges II) is exemplary of his brusque delivery: robust baritone chunks bark from the bell of his horn, dovetailing with oily, ornery squeaks and raw, desperate, Discovery Channel moans. The record primarily consists of thick sax slabs recorded live in single takes. Enormous amounts of spatial perspective, though, are carved out through both Efrim Menuck’s inventive miking and recording and composer Ben Frost’s unorthdox mixing. Guest vocals—contributions, spoken and sung respectively, from Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden—provide an interesting linguistic frame for Stetson’s dark-hued, protrusive playing.
Nick Storring is a Toronto-based composer, musician, and writer, and a contributing editor to Musicworks. His music has been presented and performed by the Esprit Orchestra, Eve Egoyan, Quatuor Bozzini, Beijing’s Musicacoustica Festival, and Vancouver New Music. An avid collaborator, Storring has composed for films by Terrance Odette, Ingrid Veninger and, in collaboration with Dafydd Hughes, for the National Film Board’s award-winning Web documentary High Rise: Universe Within (2015), directed by Katerina Cizek. He’s also scored productions by Litmus Theatre and MT Space, worked with celebrated choreographers Yvonne Ng, Marie Josée Chartier, Brandy Leary, and Deepti Gupta, and created music for “ambient gaming environment” Tentacle, which was mounted at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2011. Storring’s writing has appeared in Exclaim!, The Wire, and AUX.tv. He also contributed liner notes to Alga Marghen’s reissue of the ’60s band Intersystems’ entire recorded output, as well as RVNG Intl.’s box of early psych trio Syrinx’s reissues and previously unreleased material Tumblers from the Vault.
