Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

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 highly-acclaimed voice as a performer/composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, rallying an array of technical strengths and innovations to make some of the most captivatingly organic, darkly soulful and otherworldly solo instrumental work of recent years with his New History Warfare trilogy. 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; she's forged a distinctive and evocative solo violin practice combining rock, folk, ambient and modernist sensibilities, culminating with her debut solo album Hero Brother in 2013. 'Never were the way she was' charts an expansive sonic trajectory with a multiplicity of structures and voicings that belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The resulting musical chronicle powerfully establishes it's own spatial and temporal horizon; Stetson and Neufeld offer up an impressively immersive integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture. 'Never were the way she was' is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than it's parts.

2013 from the saxophonist and Arcade Fire touring member. Colin Stetson established himself as an intensely original solo composer and performer in 2011 with the of the widely acclaimed New History Warfare Vol. 2 Judges, which ended up on countless year-end lists. Anyone who has seen Stetson in solo performance can attest to the stunning physicality of his circular-breathing technique and capacity to produce a seemingly impossible palate of multiple voicing's simultaneously in real time.

Colin Stetson is a horn player of uncommon strength, skill and genre-defying creativity. He composes and performs otherworldly songs that combine a mastery of circular breathing technique with percussive valve-work and reed vocalizations. This is Colin's second solo record and his first for Constellation. Stetson has been making his mark as a staggering solo performer for several years now, opening for Arcade Fire and the National, and playing at jazz and new music festivals like Moers and London Jazz. His talents have been employed by artists as diverse as Tom Waits, Antibalas and Bon Iver.