Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld
Two of Constellation's acclaimed solo instrumental artists join forces on this tremendous new album of original compositions for horn and violin.
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic Read Full BioTwo of Constellation's acclaimed solo instrumental artists join forces on this tremendous new album of original compositions for horn and violin.
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic, darkly soulful and otherworldly solo instrumental work of recent years. His brilliant trilogy of New History Warfare records (2007-2013) has been resoundingly celebrated by critics, fans and fellow musicians across many genres: avant/jazz, modern classical/minimalism, electronic/noise, industrial/dark ambient, black metal and indie rock.
The solo violin work of Sarah Neufeld has emerged more recently, and especially through 2011-2014, in the period between her primary band Arcade Fire's last two albums. While no stranger to modern/minimalist composition with her Bell Orchestre ensemble dating back to the early 2000s, Neufeld has lately forged a newly distinctive, deliberate and evocative solo violin practice combining rock, folk, ambient and modernist sensibilities, culminating with her debut solo album Hero Brother in 2013.
Stetson and Neufeld first began playing in duo formation while on tour together as soloists in 2012, joining each other on stage for one or two of their respective pieces. Stetson had also collaborated in the past with Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire, and with Neufeld and Shahzad Ismaily in an improv trio dating back to 2010 (including the Blue Caprice soundtrack). Duo compositions for their debut album emerged throughout 2014, and were road-tested that spring with performances at the Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada) and Moers Festival (Germany). The album was recorded without overdubbing, looping, sampling, cutting or pasting at their farmhouse attic studio in rural Vermont by Hans Bernhard and mixed in Montreal by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire).
Never were the way she was is guided by the metaphorical narrative of the life of a girl who ages slow as mountains; excited, exalted, and ultimately exiled in her search for a world that resembles her experience. The album's expansive sonic trajectory and multiplicity of structures and voicings belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The result is a musical chronicle that powerfully establishes its own spatial and temporal horizon, a soundtrack that requires no images but profoundly compels the imaginative. From the filigreed ostinato polyrhythms of “The sun roars into view” and “In the vespers” to the stately long tones of “And they still move”, the dark drone-inflected sea-saw waltz of “With the dark hug of time” to the growling, pulsing thrust of the album’s epic centerpiece “The rest of us”, Stetson and Neufeld offer up an incredible (and impressively diverse) integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture while holding their respective instruments in sparkling juxtaposition. Never were the way she was is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than its parts.
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic Read Full BioTwo of Constellation's acclaimed solo instrumental artists join forces on this tremendous new album of original compositions for horn and violin.
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic, darkly soulful and otherworldly solo instrumental work of recent years. His brilliant trilogy of New History Warfare records (2007-2013) has been resoundingly celebrated by critics, fans and fellow musicians across many genres: avant/jazz, modern classical/minimalism, electronic/noise, industrial/dark ambient, black metal and indie rock.
The solo violin work of Sarah Neufeld has emerged more recently, and especially through 2011-2014, in the period between her primary band Arcade Fire's last two albums. While no stranger to modern/minimalist composition with her Bell Orchestre ensemble dating back to the early 2000s, Neufeld has lately forged a newly distinctive, deliberate and evocative solo violin practice combining rock, folk, ambient and modernist sensibilities, culminating with her debut solo album Hero Brother in 2013.
Stetson and Neufeld first began playing in duo formation while on tour together as soloists in 2012, joining each other on stage for one or two of their respective pieces. Stetson had also collaborated in the past with Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire, and with Neufeld and Shahzad Ismaily in an improv trio dating back to 2010 (including the Blue Caprice soundtrack). Duo compositions for their debut album emerged throughout 2014, and were road-tested that spring with performances at the Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada) and Moers Festival (Germany). The album was recorded without overdubbing, looping, sampling, cutting or pasting at their farmhouse attic studio in rural Vermont by Hans Bernhard and mixed in Montreal by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire).
Never were the way she was is guided by the metaphorical narrative of the life of a girl who ages slow as mountains; excited, exalted, and ultimately exiled in her search for a world that resembles her experience. The album's expansive sonic trajectory and multiplicity of structures and voicings belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The result is a musical chronicle that powerfully establishes its own spatial and temporal horizon, a soundtrack that requires no images but profoundly compels the imaginative. From the filigreed ostinato polyrhythms of “The sun roars into view” and “In the vespers” to the stately long tones of “And they still move”, the dark drone-inflected sea-saw waltz of “With the dark hug of time” to the growling, pulsing thrust of the album’s epic centerpiece “The rest of us”, Stetson and Neufeld offer up an incredible (and impressively diverse) integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture while holding their respective instruments in sparkling juxtaposition. Never were the way she was is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than its parts.
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The Sun Roars Into View
Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics can frequently be found in the comments below, by filtering for lyric videos or browsing the comments in the different videos below.
J-P Claudel
And to think that the music is so beautiful.
MS A
Dramatic epitome...
i have a bulimic mind
amazing
Dude Man19
A Marble Ocean Swims in Freeform
The Sky Lies Draped in Stippled Velvet
Like so many Sun Spots, a Gradient
Into the Darkening Morning.
and there She is.
She has found the pieces of herself,
of her past and her terrible, glorious future;
Now is the time for remaking.
- - -
It was by instinct, she would later realize
when her death returned her here once more,
that she had stepped out onto that Crystal Sea;
The soul is always eager to heal.
But her foot does not break the surface,
Meeting the water firmly
And she begins to glide as angels might
Into the Darkening Morning.
Mountains, made pale by distance,
Slowly roll in the Gradient Wake of the Sun
As Banners or as Clouds,
And with a Wave of a Finger
Or a Flutter of her Heart,
The Horizon Folded and Flew.
Faster and Faster and Faster,
Her hair catches wind whipping behind her,
The Ripples on the Water
Run in Rivulets of Nebulæ and Neurons
In her Growing Wake, like the World was Stretching
Like so many Scales on the Serpent's Back,
In a Weightless Cloud behind her.
It is a Dream, perhaps, but Defined
In a kind of Limitless way.
And by God,
she feels Freer than she had in months
Her shadows dance about her,
Gathering as if from nowhere
The parts of a person
Long ago left forgotten.
- - -
The Healing Begins
Her many Pieces, as Shards of Stained Glass,
Gather and lay themselves upon her,
Until she is Made all over from their Color
Passing forward in Butterflies and Feathers,
Wisps of Memories, Feelings, Pains
The Glorious Varieties of Life
- - -
The Cloud falls away, finished
A soft call alights the Aer.
The Darkening Morning Breaks,
With the Cry reaching it's Peak
And Behold
The Sun Breaks Upon Her,
It's Light Falls Upon her Chest
And Oh, how She Glows
Like The Windows of a Church,
As Coral might in Glass,
An Opal Of Infinity, A Diamond of Galaxies
The Simple Complexity of Being;
The Ringing of A Soul Completed
Is a Glory Beyond All Compare.
- - -
The Waves Settle
The Sun Fades into Wakefullness
And She Awakens Anew
The Person She Is No Longer
As The Person She Was Before
And Somehow, She Knows
She will Again Return to that Place,
Where She will Become All Over Again
As The Sun Roars Into View.
Quelza
@Dude Man19 This is a wonderful and extremely powerful text , and it touched me deeply thanks a lot for taking the time to do that.
🖤
Dude Man19
@Quelza it was me. A very particular image came to me as i listened to this, and I wanted to share as best i could.
Quelza
This is beautiful , who wrote it ? Thank's a lot for sharing this