Jean-Michel Blais, Ruby Singh, and Chris Hauer
Jean-Michel Blais
aubades // Arts & Crafts
aubades finds pianist Jean-Michel Blais springing into fine form as a composer - crafting a harmonious album of eleven refreshing and comforting instrumental pieces performed by a twelve person ensemble (including Blais on piano). The lush recording encourages contemplation and creativity to arise in the minds & hearts of listeners, which is a direct reflection of the inspiration and creativity that Blais himself experienced while working on aubades. The songs stem from over 500 of Blais’ improvised piano ideas, but the final compositions do not feel pieced-together, overworked, or too busy – they are thoughtfully arranged with playful buoyancy and an overarching curiosity.
Opening song “murmures” is a dramatic and expansive waltz that sways between swelling strings and steady hypnotic piano, and sets the stage for the abundance of spirited, expressive compositions that follow. Blais creates rounded music that laces high frequencies with grounding, earthy sounds. Lively strings like violin, cello, voila, and zestful flute trill about as double bass and bassoon envelope and strike full thrusts of sound. One of aubades more subdued moments is found halfway through the album on: “if you build it, they will come”. The composer sustains a stringed note that invites the listener to reverently reflect on the soft steps that accompany the change of seasons, while quick delicate piano descends like a waterfall trickling onto rocks. The piece ends with the close-up sounds of an exceptionally softly plucked string.
aubades is dripping with the common love of creating and enjoying music in connection with others. A nice demonstration of the aliveness of the recording sessions is the soft chatter and laughter between musicians at the end of tracks. This touch connects listeners to the feeling of being in the room amongst the talented musicians that bring Blais’ compositions to life. aubades sees Blais composing in a way that pushes more than his piano to the forefront, as he brings a variety of instruments to centre stage. One particular highlight is on “carrousel” when the stringed instruments sneakily overtake and consume the repeating piano melody as they strongly and assuredly close out the song.
Blais made an effort to write this album with a focus on major keys, as opposed to the more domineering minor tonalities that commonly accompony instrumental piano music. His use of major tonalities brings to mind warm recollections of being outdoors, and cheery images of change and growth instead of menacing, dreary thoughts. This uplifting album is a perfect antidote to despondent times. The joy heard on aubades is also a reflection of the period when the music was written. It connects to the freshness that was blooming around Blais in the springtime, as well as to the new inspiration he felt stepping into his role as a composer. In press material for this album, Blais notes that the album was written during a: “fruitful moment of creativity…beautiful butterflies flying everywhere”, and this is surely evident while listening to his new music. On vibrant tracks like “passepied” and “ouessant”, it is easy to imagine butterflies fluttering to the bounce of staccato strings before the breeze guides them to gracefully land on flower petals.
The focus on writing with major tonalities also connects with the album’s title: aubades refers to the term “aubade” which is a Middle Ages love song about lovers departing at dawn. The thrilling transitions, uplifting keys, and beautiful undulations in this album reflect the emotions that lovers feel as they depart in the morning. Blais' decision to write compositions for multiple instruments and record with an ensemble of musicians gives aubades a friendly feeling of connectivity, and his smartly written serenades shine with the warm promise of newfound love.
- Gregory Torwalt
Ruby Singh
Vox.Infold // Self Released
Vox.Infold feels a lot more like a landscape painting than an album. A function of layers more than a function of harmonies or chords. This project accomplishes in entirety what most artists can only snatch bits and pieces of: Vox.Infold is a proclamation. If you give it the time of day, you will find a snapshot so well-defined and clear that the fact that it’s expressed sonically seems merely incidental. This latest offering from Vancouver-based composer and producer Ruby Singh is entirely a capella, replacing instrumentation entirely with a cavalcade of voices and backgrounds, including Indigenous, Inuit, Black, and South Asian vocalists. The standout threads of this project are throat singing and other Indigenous forms of singing, although woven-in is a myriad of other traditions including poetry and Hip-Hop.
Mournful and fluid, Vox.Infold is as reflective as it is intricate. Movements blur into one another seamlessly, and rhythms and tones play against one another, evoking movement and conflict. Literally, as well as thematically, this project weaves a whole out of a set of distinct voices, each of which stands out clearly as a single aspect of the entirety of the composition as much as it melts into the voices around it. Complex polyrhythms are sewn together out of growls, Glee-style vocalizing, drums, ambient wails, poetry, chanting, and sound effects that fade in and out of the foreground, trading places and exercising, in many ways, the chase and play that are characteristic of Inuit throat singing.
An expression of community, Vox.Infold contrasts a wide range of vocal traditions and styles and, in doing so, takes steps to highlight a shared musical experience. The fluidity and seeming structurelessness of this project contribute to the feeling that it brings of creation, and the joy of that creation, leaving a wide range of possibilities for the interpretation and experience of this album. The purely a capella form of Vox.Infold, too, is made to feel less like a restriction than it does like something that brings the potential for experimentation and indulgence.
Recorded in the context of a global pandemic, Ruby Singh brought together, presumably in a covid-safe way, a range of artists whose art takes the form of one of the most infectious activities. It is fitting, then, as these artists lend their own traditions and styles to this project, that the only narrative of Vox.Infold seems to be the back and forth between the voices on the album. The result is a snapshot of interaction, engagement, and discussion doing the only thing that many have done during Covid: mourning the varied and comprehensive losses of the past years, and daring to wonder what the future might look like.
- Devon Acuña
Chris Hauer
Island Cowboy OST // Self Released
After a three year interlude, Montreal-based songwriter Chris Hauer returns with an original soundtrack for the documentary Island Cowboy by Raphael Sandler - Island Cowboy follows a Canadian beekeeper on Prince Edward Island during one of his last years of work, where he struggles with wanting to retire but facing the environmental threat to the ecosystem around him impacting the bee’s future as well as the health of the ecosystem. This alone is a considerable departure by Chris Hauer from earlier work such as Hum (2019) and The Most Fun that Two People Can Have Together (2017).
Island Cowboy OST maintains some of the key musical approaches to Chris Hauer’s music such minimal compositions of repetitive melodies, often deploying a wide range of textures to develop a fully enveloping sound - perhaps the most significant difference from a release such as Hum (which is the release I am most acquainted with) is the instrumental affinity of the soundtrack and its specific choice of instruments as well as textures.
While earlier releases captivated an indie rock in the style of something like Broken Social Scene, Island Cowboy OST captivates a folksier sound that would make for a delightful Saturday morning bike ride around the countryside. Island Cowboy OST features tracks such as the opening “Cold Open” where a bassy synth opens up the track to a twinkly acoustic guitar and occasional electric guitar arrangements to decorate the song - in as minimal a track as this is, Chris Hauer is able to build an incredible sense of grandeur with a cinematic edge. Tunes like “Stan” (titled after the beekeeper) or “Small Hive Beetle” feature a mix of more orchestral arrangements such as the warm string arrangements in “Stan” by Zackery McLaren and the wind instruments in the background of “Small Hive Beetle.” Or in the instance of “Life Cycle” and its reprise, we listen to this edifying sound building multiple layers to different ends - the original builds the intensity of the song, whereas the reprisal eases off that intensity into a conclusive note.
Though not what I would have expected for his next release, Island Cowboy OST offers us a different take of Chris Hauer’s music actively depicting a story being told through musical means. Each scene is captivated through its own musical arrangement, from the opening track to Stan’s introductions to the active reflections on the cycles of life. The music immersed itself in the story, it sought to complement, and the musical prowess has me anticipating whatever the next Chris Hauer album would end up looking like.
- Simone A. Medina Polo
