#a common truth

[33frames]

Artist : Saltland

Track : Light Of Mercy

Album : A Common Truth

[spotlight-on-musicblog]

Saltland - A Common Truth (2017)

The cello is an instrument that can carve deep cuts into one's soul and Rebecca Foon certainly does this with finesse on this beautiful release. She uses subtle electronics to enhance the sound creating an emotional journey about fear and hope for the future of our mother earth. It's about climate change you know !

Released: 31 march 2017

Info Bandcamp: A Common Truth is the second album by Saltland, the solo project of veteran Montréal cellist and composer Rebecca Foon. Following the acclaimed 2013 debut I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us, Foon performed Saltland live in various successful configurations, but as the concept and compositions for a new album began to materialize, she wished to further expand on an approach with her cello as primary source for all sounds on the record. Combining unadulterated, processed and sampled cellos, A Common Truth largely reflects this commitment and results in an album of gorgeous integrity, restraint, and meditative intensity. The one notable exception: longtime friend and prior collaborator Warren Ellis (Nick Cave, Dirty Three) is the album's special guest player, contributing violin, pump organ and loops to the album's four instrumental tracks.   Working with engineer Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), Foon has produced a song cycle that alternates between wordless instrumentals and lyric-driven pieces, balancing austere, organic intimacy and lush, multi-layered expansiveness. The analog warmth of Lasek’s naturalistic rock production anchors Saltland’s juxtaposition of dry and processed strings, with the placement of Foon's voice very much within the mix but never veiled or concealed; a voice described as "an instrument of somnolent, gossamer allure which floats gracefully amid the eddying, amniotic music" (Mojo, 2013). Electronic music strategies, via signal processing and re-sampling, are deployed minimally and judiciously – and all the more powerfully as such.   A Common Truth also importantly channels other strands from Rebecca's life: the record is about climate change and marks an attempt to musically translate a complex mix of emotional, social and political resonances in this regard. The album's atmosphere and pace is guided by the coexistence of optimism and despair, resolve and resignation, the intimacy of the local/personal and the hope of the global/collective. Foon has devoted much of her life in recent years to working for decarbonization, land conservation and renewable energy – as a member of Sustainability Solutions Group cooperative, as founder of the conservation charity Junglekeepers, and as co-founder of Pathway to Paris, an international concert series bringing together musicians, writers and activists to help raise consciousness toward implementation of a robust international climate agreement.   Rebecca Foon's new Saltland album A Common Truth is a compelling coalescence and fullest musical expression of the inspiring trajectories charted by this committed and renowned artist, activist and organizer. Thanks for listening.

What they say: “.... Rebecca Foon has managed to take what could have been a narrow exercise in chamber music and crafted something with real emotional depth and scope. She takes cues from sources as diverse as drone and freak folk while hewing devotedly to her core instrument. No matter your tastes and inclinations, you may be surprised just how affecting the album proves to be....” (popmatters.com)

“...... The cello is such an emotive instrument that it’s hard to hear its low tones without a feeling of sadness or dread.  Each emotion is pertinent here...... The timbre lands between modern composition and post-rock, as might be expected from the artist’s pedigree, the music coming across as somber and cinematic.....” ( acloserlisten.com)

“.... . The album successfully shifts between fatalistic mourning and a pragmatic resolve towards optimism, capturing all the problematic and uncomfortable truths surrounding an environment in crisis. This is a quietly powerful, and intensely beautiful, record whose contemplations will bed themselves in your mind and hopefully move you towards caring about the issues raised as deeply as she clearly does....” (musicomh.com)

A Common Truth by Saltland

[thenewobjective]

Saltland ~ A Common Truth

Saltland ~ A Common Truth

Is that a diamond?  No, it’s a piece of melting ice, a symbol of A Common Truth that represents a seemingly undeniable piece of evidence.  And yet, in this new era of “post truth” and “alternate facts”, there may be no such thing as common truth.  The frustration toward this attitude, as well as concern over climate change, inspired Rebecca Foon (Saltland) to write this album.  We can only…

View On WordPress