Colin Stetson - The First - Original Soundtrack Vol. 1 '2018

Tracks list

Woodwind player Colin Stetson can play powerfully while circular breathing for
long periods, draw multiphonics out of a sax with great skill, and command an
audiences attention with his focus and melodic improvisations. He has worked
with everyone from Arcade Fire and Tom Waits to Anthony Braxton and Bon Iver.
Though he led a couple of bands on his earliest recordings, it was his solo
saxophone work -- that experimented with circular breathing, tongue slaps, and
numerous arcane and experimental techniques -- articulated on his New History
Warfare, Vols. 1-3 recordings on Constellation, that made journalists claim hed
created his own genre.

Stetson was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he became proficient on
assorted saxophones, clarinet, and flute during his tenure in the citys public
schools. He earned a degree in music from the University of Michigan in 1997,
studying with Roscoe Mitchell, Donald Sinta, and Christopher Creviston;
afterward, he went on to study with Steve Adams and Henry Threadgill. While
still in college, he co-founded Transmission (which later became Transmission
Trio), and in 1998 he played with progressive Detroit-area jazz-rockers Larval
on their Knitting Factory album Larval 2. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area
that summer along with the rest of Transmission, who released their first album
in 1999.

Stetson also branched out to play with the Peoples Bizarre, a chamber jazz group
influenced by Eastern European folk, and Connector, which blended acoustic and
electronic instrumentation. In the meantime, he also played live with the likes
of Fred Frith, Peter Kowald, Ned Rothenberg, and Kenny Wollesen, and kept up his
Detroit/Ann Arbor connections as well. Before moving west, he had played on his
friend Reclooses debut EP for Planet E, and their collaborations continued over
the years, culminating in the DJs acclaimed full-length, Cardiology, in 2002.
Also that year, Tom Waits tapped Stetson for reed work on his Alice and Blood
Money albums, which led to significant exposure and a live performance on The
Late Show with David Letterman. Stetson had a limited-edition 3 CD release of a
2002 performance at the Artship in Oakland, and his full-length debut as a
leader came in the summer of 2003 with the quintet recording Slow Descent.

Stetson moved to Montreal, Quebec in 2007, and the following year he delivered
the primarily solo saxophone album New History of Warfare, Vol. 1. He returned
in 2011 with the excellent New History of Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges, which
featured spoken word sections from avant-garde singer Laurie Anderson, and later
in the year he released an EP, Those Who Didnt Run. He has toured with Arcade
Fire and Belle Orchestre, and recorded with scores of artists, including Anthony
Braxton and Bon Iver. In 2013, Stetson returned with New History of Warfare,
Vol. 3: To See More Light. The only overdubs on this atmospheric album came in
the form of guest vocals by Bon Ivers Justin Vernon. He also contributed to
Arcade Fires Reflektor album. In 2014, Stetson played on Dreaming Awake, the
first track off My Brightest Diamonds None More Than You EP, and Timbre Timbres
Hot Dreams. In 2015, he and violinist Sarah Neufeld -- another Constellation
artist as well as a member of Arcade Fire -- recorded the album Never Were the
Way She Was, a set of live-in-the-studio duets. It saw release in the spring.

Though Stetson continued his wide-ranging work as a studio and touring sideman
as well as a solo performer, he turned to realizing the dream of revisioning
Polish composers Henryk Goreckis best-known (and prize-winning) work, Symphony
No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) as his next solo project. Considering it a
transformative work in his musical life, he utilized altered instrumentation,
including electric guitars, winds, an orchestral string section, rock drums, and
electronics. Members of his cast included Neufeld, Liturgys Greg Fox, Esmerines
Rebecca Foon, saxophonist Matt Bauder, and mezzo-soprano Megan Stetson (Colins
sister). This new approach drew from his classical and improvisational
backgrounds as well as black metal and electronic music. The album, released as
Sorrow: A Reimagining of Goreckis 3rd Symphony, was issued by 52hz in the spring
of 2016 to unanimous international critical acclaim. He and the band toured the
recording, drawing sold-out crowds and rave reviews. He also formed a blackened
doom metal band called EX EYE w/Fox, Shahzad Ismaily, and Toby Summerfield.

In February of 2017, Stetson announced the release of All This I Do for Glory, a
new solo album that in the artists words offers a reasoning and exploration of
the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of
afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the Greek
tragedies. Its muses were Aphex Twin and Autechre for their percussive
methodologies, as well as Enyas Shepherd Moons album for her use of microphone
placement. It allowed Stetson to place mikes around both sides of his face as he
blew to allow for venting (a no-no for horn players in school) where the player
opens the sides of her/his mouth slightly, which allows air to pass outside and
create a sound. All This I Do for Glory was issued in April with an acclaimed
self-titled full-length issued later in the year, followed by a tour. In the
aftermath, Stetson was contacted by film director Ari Aster about scoring his
horror film Hereditary with the only directive being that he wanted it to sound
evil. The musician gathered an army of reed, woodwind, and brass instruments and
began altering some of them to bring their individual sounds down to elementals
-- such as de-pitching bass clarinets in order to get the sound of the woodwind
material into the foreground and abstract sound as much as he could within the
context of the music, representing a physical location/character in the film. He
also stated in an interview that while creating the score, he was influenced by
the music of the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, electronic duo
Autechre, and the sounds of bats swarming. Hereditary was issued by Milan in the
later spring of 2018. ~ Steve Huey

Tracklist:
01. Colin Stetson - Morning Of
02. Colin Stetson - Control Room
03. Colin Stetson - Battlefield
04. Colin Stetson - Fallout
05. Colin Stetson - You Wanna Be God
06. Colin Stetson - Aurora Borealis
07. Colin Stetson - Denise
08. Colin Stetson - Antarctica
09. Colin Stetson - Memory and Ambition
10. Colin Stetson - The First
11. Colin Stetson - Denise Paints
12. Colin Stetson - Stories
13. Colin Stetson - Relapse
14. Colin Stetson - Diane
15. Colin Stetson - Stages
16. Colin Stetson - Into Every Corner of the Night
17. Colin Stetson - The End
18. Colin Stetson - Consequence

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