Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld Never Were The Way She Was

Never Were The Way She Was nasce in casa Constellation e non poteva essere altrimenti: lei al violino e alla voce e lui ai sassofoni (basso e tenore) e al clarinetto contrabbasso, oltre al solito armamentario di fisicità, sospiri, morsi espressi sulle ance e sulle meccaniche degli strumenti. inoltre la denominazione d’origine “the album was recorded without overdubbing, looping, sampling, cutting or pasting” dona al tutto l’incanto e lo stupore per il suono contenuto; un approccio materico che mescola timbri acustici, vocalità e tessiture organiche come se si trattasse di arte plastica e non di musica. impasti grezzi, ruvidi come in un’arte povera da toccare.

gli otto brani contenuti nel disco si potrebbero raccontare come cameristica contemporanea che deve parecchio al minimalismo: ma i due sembrano giunti in questo luogo procedendo contromano rispetto allo sviluppo cronologico di queste musiche del ‘900, arrivandoci a rovescio, dalla contemporaneità a ritroso verso il passato, dall’urgenza punk di Stetson mescolata con l’indie più colto della Neufeld indietro a ridefinire i confini di genere.

Can a violin fit inside a saxophone if you jam it in there just right? Maybe! I don’t know! What if the violin’s like a child size one, and the saxophone’s a joke saxophone that’s the size of two full-grown adults? I bet in that case you could slide that ole violin in there easy-peasy. With all this talk of jamming instruments inside other instruments, I feel like you and I are really on track to write up a post about the freshly announced collaborative full-length between saxophonist Colin “Ole Fake Lungs” Stetson and violinist Sarah “Her Fingers Might Be Invisible” Neufeld. So let’s dive in! The album’s called Never were the way she was and it’s due out April 28 from Canadian starmongers Constellation.

1. The sun roars into view
2. Won't be a thing to become
3. In the vespers
4. And still they move
5. With the dark hug of time
6. The rest of us
7. Never were the way she was
8. Flight

Stream the Canadian experimental power-duo's impressionistic new album, Never were the way she was. Available from Constellation record's official soundcloud posted on an article on The Fader.