Colin Stetson - New History Warfare pt 2: Judges

Holy fuck. This is shockingly, shockingly good.

Stetson's an enormous talent, has been for years - but this album is a great leap forward, an ice-age kind of leap. Utterly outstanding. Terrifying, thunderous, thrilling, sad. For me recalls, Nat Baldwin, Mark Hollis, Mogwai, Mt Eerie, Alexander Tucker, Phosphorescent's Pride, Born Heller, Alèmu Aga, Richard Youngs, Peter Brötzmann, and fuck i'm gonna drop James Blake in there.

If you don't know him, Stetson's a solo saxophonist. (In the past he has paid his rent as a sideman for Beirut and Arcade Fire.) But his songs are not free or hard-bop jazz, nothing like that: he breathes, sings through his instrument, uses the keys as percussion, making a kind of haunted roaring post-rock. I first saw him on stage opening for Baby Dee.

New History Warfare pt 2: Judges is due from Constellation in February.

Recorded live in single takes, with no overdubs
by Godspeed's Efrim Menuck at the Hotel 2 Tango.

Produced by Stetson and Shahzad Ismaily.

With (several) guest vocals by Laurie Anderson and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden.

There's one song streaming at NPR, and one at Constellation, but honestly this is an album album. Hoping to get the ok on posting another track at Said the Gramophone this week.

He was pretty great when I played with him in Contemporary Performance Ensemble under Fred Frith at Mills about 10 years ago. Been kind of waiting for his name to turn up again. This multiple-microphone live take stuff sounds fantastic and I will definitely pick this up. Like someone who grew up listening to weird post-rock as much as he did Evan Parker.

bump! ...this is AMAZING

Saw him opening for Godspeed a few weeks ago, took me a while to get into it but was enjoying it well enough by the end. If my enthusiasm was less than total it's because, as correctly noted above, he's not a free jazz saxophonist (although his use of circular breathing is very reminiscent of Evan Parker's). He didn't attack the instrument in the way that I've come to love in the playing of Mats Gustafsson and Peter Brötzmann. Kudos to him though for playing solo sax to 1000 Godspeed fans and making them roar with approval.

yeah i have not heard all of this yet but hearing the ... the righteous anger one, on FMU was kinda instantly mindblowing in a way that nothing else new has been for awhile.

an intense, physical solo-no-overdubs sax record with all sorts of innovation is pretty much exactly what i didn't know i needed in 2011 but am finding utterly compelling in 2011 (possibly in conjunction w/ this exercise: Rolling 2011 thread where I buy and listen to jazz albums for the first time ever)

gorgeous artwork, too

http://cstrecords.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CST075_22FEB.jpg

whoops, guess you guys can read the constellation press quotes alongside the image! didn't know they came together ;_;

― Damn this thread seems so....different without ilxor (justin vernon) (BON IVER), Thursday, 3 March 2011 15:46 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha

i had a brief o_O moment when i thought "lol bon iver/arcade fire" etc. but then set it aside and listened to the stetson record and holy shit, any ppl who despise AF/vernon/etc. and avoid this b/c of the association are missing out on something very different and awesome

btw, the sax on Tom Waits' 00s records (alice, blood money, orphans)? apparently that's this dude

but then set it aside and listened to the stetson record and holy shit, any ppl who despise AF/vernon/etc. and avoid this b/c of the association are missing out on something very different and awesome

word
i figured this was some astral thing from 1972 when i heard it; have suspicious feelings about constellation but this is something else

xpost does this mean he is the guy who ruined jesus gonna be here with a shitty sax solo when i saw tom waits

thing is though that Stetson is far from being alone in solo sax innovation, Mats Gustafsson has been doing wonders like this for years but gets pigeonholed as a jazzman so doesn't really count... not demeaning Stetson for one moment b/c I still think what he's doing is good but the idea that he is the only person playing out-there solo sax is just w/e

this is indeed amazing. like it a lot.

Mats Gustafsson has been doing wonders like this for years

yes-- i've dipped my toes into gustafsson thanks to HOOS raving on the jazz thread-- cosign!

so psyched that people are discovering this

hits me more deeply with every listen
oof

someone was pointing out how harmonically (or, i guess, chordally?) this isn't that adventurous - but in that sense it's more like the blues, the agony and yearning of the interpretation/performance, not the intricacy of the notes. (that said, it is hilarious to call this anything less than intricate.)

am happy to be a gauge of jazzbo permeation into the indie-sphere, here. i don't know that guy, will check him out.

Yeah, the AF/Bon Iver connections hopefully won't hurt folks listening to this. Pretty incredible stuff on first listen. Love this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhH-k1npY64

And thanks for the Mats Gustafsson recommendation. Heard the name, never listened to the music. Starting points?

Brings to mind this masterful-ness a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7EGQzn8e1k

Gustafsson works a lot of the time in groups, The Thing would be his main vehicle for group work and anything by them is totally recommended. His solo album The Vilnius Implosion from a couple of years ago is also very fine. Here he is in solo mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWe4m4yqGM

Evan Parker is also a name to be checked out, his solo circular breathing excursions are pretty phenomenal as seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQEM7d8v58

Thanks for those anagram. I definitely prefer the "warmth" that I feel from the Colin Stetson and Evan Parker stuff to the sound of that one Gustafsson clip. I will investigate more.

Okay, I have listened through this several more times and the overriding feeling is that I absolutely love it...except for basically any of the vocals. To my ears, they completely mar this otherwise magnificent album. Instrumental version?

i do think laurie's vocals are mixed a bit high, but y'know... nothing's perfect

Yeah, but this album feels like it would've been nearly perfect without those vocals;).

This is pretty much amazingly amazin

played this again today. still gets better each time i hear it. far and away the best thing i've heard in 2011, can't imagine another album would overtake it by year's end. if it does, it'll be a VERY good year...

I like Laurie's spoken word on this
It's mixed really great on headphones, one mic hard left, one mic hard right, Laurie up the middle

Colin Stetson! I used to bump elbows w/ this dude back when he used to play house-parties in Ann Arbor w/ a crazy psychedelic free-jazz outfit called Transmission (this being 10-15 years ago). I had heard about his many high-profile collabs, but I will def have to check this thing out..

Of the other sax dudes mentioned itt, I'm def also down w/ Mats Gustafsson & Peter Brötzmann

He reincarnated that band or moved it when he moved to the Bay Area.

I'm pretty sure he took the name & maybe a couple players. I remember him coming back through the midwest in the early 00s w/ an outfit called the Transmission Trio - anyway, here's this: http://listenlabs.com/transmission.html

yeah, I remember seeing the Transmission Trio at least once.

The sound on this record is so immense and raw, even though it's got so many more silent moments. I'm bracing myself every single time I put it on, it blows me away.

Best I've heard this year.

it's shaping up to be a frontrunner, for sure. so dense and powerful and unique.

actually love shara woden's vocals on this.

This is so, so great:

http://vimeo.com/19110127

Also John Butcher for super-advanced technique allied with great musicality. He does the percussive thing really well, and manipulates feedback through his horn to mindblowing results.

Liking this Stetson record, but it's definitely less free-jazz and more into Terry Riley territory in some respects: the overlapping repetitions and what not.

Hey, what's a good John Butcher record to check out? Is it something that translates well to record, or is it best experienced live? Seems like he does a lot of "playing the room/environment", which is something I definitely feel, but obviously can be tough to translate to a recording.

i think it depends on who he's playing with. I've seen him do really quiet stuff, but I've also seen him actually play the saxophone.

This is so, so good, except for the spoken word parts.

Along similar enough lines, has anybody else on here enjoyed this?
http://boomkat.com/downloads/321345-thomas-ankersmit-live-in-utrecht

this album sounds so good. playing it very loud with the window wide open seems just right for some reason

A predictably sniffy review in The WIRE which opines that you might like this if you've never heard of Evan Parker despite most other reviews and Stetson himself mentioning him as an influence. I told my mate who's really into free jazz about this and he went berserk about it. Said it was appalling like Hooked On Classics or Jean Michelle Jarre.

what's appalling ? Stetson or the wire ?

I don't think The WIRE's appalling. I've bought it every month for the last decade. I just mean you can often tell in advance when they're going to go, 'No, no, no dear boy! You're doing it all wrong...'

In the rush to decry him as a pale imitation of Evan Parker ("He plays with Arcade Fire... Gosh, how middle brow...") they've missed the revolutionary aspect of what he does, which is the way the album is recorded via scores and scores of contact microphones in single takes.

But no, The WIRE's brilliant, and more importantly, it would cease to be brilliant if it didn't maintain clear distance between what they cover and everything else.

My mate thinks it's appalling which I only mention as I see him as a typical consumer of 'difficult', 'avant garde' music.

I love the album. It's one of my favourites of the year so far. I'm currently writing up a feature on Stetson for The Quietus.

didn't know there was a thread about this album! such beautiful sounds. I listen to "The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man" pretty much every night these days.

I could definitely see why such a person would find this album appalling, in that it is neither difficult nor avant garde

I find such people a bit sad.

they've missed the revolutionary aspect of what he does, which is the way the album is recorded via scores and scores of contact microphones in single takes

But that doesn't affect the way I respond to the album as a listener. As I mentioned upthread I am one of those free jazz fans (also a dedicated Wire reader, btw) who is not bowled over by this album, simply because it doesn't sound all that thrilling or innovative when held up next to Parker or Gustafsson in full flight. Fetishizing the way it was recorded is kind of beside the point imo.

i used to have a regular sunday poker game w/ this dude's younger brother. Colin's career has been on a pretty stellar upward trajectory for quite a while now, but, even so, I would not have expected him to drop an unaccompanied solo record that is inexplicably, completely objectively, my favorite album of 2011 thusfar by a wide margin. I mean, I'm normally not even all that crazy about saxophones in general (or maybe I just haven't been listening to the right things?)

i enjoy this record and know nothing about that kind of stuff...

which parker, butcher or gustafsson albums should i be into ?

But that doesn't affect the way I respond to the album as a listener.

really? i didn't care for this much until i read about how it was recorded, that definitely made me hear it in another way.

colin's hale and healthy as hell. does lots of yoga. very disciplined. looks after himself.

Yeah, he looks pretty damn well.

I saw him play back in June, he looked gooooood.

It is super hard on him, though. Wouldn't be surprised if this is him at "the height of his powers" but that we've got up to ten more years at this level

Haven't heard anything else by him, but Judges astounds me!

http://devonrecordclub.com/2013/09/30/colin-stetson-new-history-of-warfare-volume-2-judges-round-54-toms-selection/

holy shit volume 3 is heavy, the singing parts maybe not so much

Yesterday I had the pleasure of transcribing all of Bon Iver's parts on vol. 3 for a children's choir. Today I have the dubious pleasure of having those parts stuck in my head

If I was to produce a Colin Stetson record there would be no guest vocals

i dunno, is diamanda galas still doing thing?

Laurie Anderson's vocals on volume 2 were excellent.

otm. it's not the presence of vocals that bugs so much as the vocalist chosen.

It might delight you to learn that Mr. Stetson just paid me for my work with two pounds of deer meat

Haha! Did you raise the possibility of producing his next one or even collaborating? A man can dream

I can well imagine Stetson fitting some kind of sonic amplifier to his sax & heading out into the snowy wilds in search of prey

If I was to produce a Colin Stetson record, I'd write "no guest vocals" on a chalkboard, fire myself and hire those able people he normally works with (Hecker, Ismaily, Frost)

so you're bon iver is what i'm getting from this

Not to pop the joke, but we can only yearn for a world where Bonny Bear took such a principled stance

Me, I like Justin's contributions. Transcribing his vocal parts I'm blown away by the timbre of his voice-- so many overtones! he sings like a C3-- and also a looseness to his phrasing. Obv I'm a big stan for Laurie and Shara. My desire for "no guest vocals" is greediness on my part, want an uninterrupted 45 minutes of nothing but Colin's own singing and blowing, maintain a unified sonic world, something that reflects the ascetic, disciplined nature of his practice

The ATP recording is great for that

http://www.npr.org/event/music/140920372/colin-stetson-in-concert-atp-festival-2011

https://soundcloud.com/constellation-records/colin-stetson-and-sarah-neufeld-the-sun-roars-into-view/

Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld - "The sun roars into view"

From new album 'Never Were The Way She Was' available 28 April 2015 on Constellation:
http://cstrecords.com/cst113/

how did i not know about this guy, this is my shit

Pretty much everyone posting from Eaux Claires has been saying the same thing!

that's how i found out!

Colin Stetson announces new album SORROW, featuring Sarah Neufeld and Liturgy’s Greg Fox

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/01/colin-stetson-announces-new-album-sorrow-featuring-sarah-neufeld-and-liturgys-greg-fox/

sounds great, i'm excited that Greg Fox is on it.

Streaming!

https://www.wnyc.org/story/premiere-colin-stetson-reimagines-classical-phenomenon/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c7YvSMyIso

Gorecki is pretty low on my list of composers I rate but this is terrific

🤔

this Gorecki album of his is brilliant.

This seemed kinda boring to me. Wanted it to be more Stetson-y, if that makes sense.

OTOH, it being not all that Stetson-y is what makes it so great to me. I've always loved the original recording with Dawn Upshaw and so I was really worried that Stetson would screw this one up, but he's done a fine job I have to say.

this is pretty epic.

looking forward to opening for him & Sarah Neufeld in a few months btw :)

i initially wanted this to be more stetson-y but ultimately liked a lot as it is

New album soon and here's the first track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJHr2DlRog8&feature=youtu.be

link broek :(

Huh, weird, worked fine for me on a check just now.

not working for me either but anyway here it is on bandcamp

https://colinstetson.bandcamp.com/album/all-this-i-do-for-glory

thanks!

This is really good but it's a little frustrating how it's almost a house track, except that it doesn't keep a consistent tempo (actually it would be hilarious to play this in a dance music set).

Another new track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T690rDJ7c80

Ex Eye record waayyyyy outdoes my expectations. It's frigging great

Ooooh yeah

I love the Ex Eye album too. but i don't care for the gorecki.

saw him live last week and he was amazing, one new track in particular was unbelievably intense, I couldn't stop grinning

Gorecki, Ex Eye, love them both

Damn, let me be the last to say this Ex Eye album is great. Now I want Stetson to make an album with GY!BE.

Ex Eye is insanely good. This may be the best thing I've heard this year.

The Hereditary OST is the first thing I've properly loved by CS since Judges. The closing run of Peter, Chasing Peter, The Attic, Reborn and Hail Paemon! is boss.

Discovered this via eoy lists and it's hitting me right today

https://brighdechaimbeul.bandcamp.com/album/carry-them-with-us
https://thequietus.com/articles/32829-brdghe-chaimbeul-carry-them-with-us-review

Brìghse Chaimbeul has risen to prominence since her first album, 2019’s entrancing The Reeling, in a way that few Scottish pipers have achieved, including playing for world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow. Her instrument is the smallpipes, a more portable, practical version of the Great Highland bagpipes which also carry fewer cultural assumptions. Chaimbeul has brought Scottish piping to a new audience with her captivating style, which has affinity with psychedelic drone as well as the folk traditions of the north. On ‘Carry Them With Us’, she shows her complete confidence as a musician through a collaboration with saxophonist Colin Stetson, which was formed initially over Twitter during lockdown.

The album is mostly instrumental, but its tracks tell stories. ‘Banish the Giant of Doubt and Despair’, for example, is a reel that starts quick and spins out of control, reflecting the tale of the princess of an underwater kingdom and the giant of the Western Isles who cannot stop dancing to her song, faster and faster until he falls into the sea and drowns. Melodic cascades flow from Chaimbeul’s pipes as though she can barely restrain them, while a bass drone and subtle, breathy saxophone combine seamlessly to set the scene. Stetson, who has been in several bands including Arcade Fire and has worked with everyone from Anthony Braxton to Tom Waits, is a subtle musician. Despite the unconventional pairing of instruments, they often seem to make a single sound. After her collaboration with major Scottish folk scene figures ‘The Reeling’, she is branching out to make new sounds.

The result is an exciting, sometimes bewitching set of tunes. Some are improvised, the two musicians working together with consummate ease.