The True Art Of Noise

We in Cincinnati are priv­i­leged to have an out­stand­ing music fes­ti­val fea­tur­ing crit­i­cally acclaimed indie musi­cians. The MusicNow Festival held every spring is a much antic­i­pated event and tick­ets are hard to come by to see some of music’s best and most inno­v­a­tive artists. And every once in awhile some­one takes you by such sur­prise and with such force, that you are left in total dis­be­lief with what you just saw and heard. We expe­ri­enced this last year at the festival.

The stage for the open­ing act of the night was bare except for a micro­phone, a huge bass sax, another stan­dard alto sax, and a clar­inet. Needless to say we were appre­hen­sive. An unas­sum­ing young man in plain plaid clothes came onstage and began to play the bass sax­o­phone. Over the next five min­utes, he emit­ted sounds that were very close to whale voices inter­spersed with com­plex rhythms and we knew our life was for­ever changed.

Every gen­er­a­tion has an icon that comes along and changes the way music is made. Buddy Rich, Les Paul, Miles Davis, Eddie Van Halen…all threw curve­balls at the way an instru­ment is played and showed us a new way. Not only the way the instru­ment is played, but how it sounds as well. And now we have a new genius who is fly­ing under the radar of pop­u­lar cul­ture yet he is out there, and you should go find him.

Colin Stetson is a Michigan native and Montreal res­i­dent who has played with many of today’s con­tem­po­rary artists includ­ing Arcade Fire, TV On The Radio, Tom Waits, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood. His com­po­si­tions show traces of John Coltrane’s run­ning scale tech­niques while at the same time evok­ing Gregorian chants. Some pieces are dark and brood­ing, while oth­ers sound just like a techno song. But the bot­tom line is Colin has changed the way these wind instru­ments are played and sound. The breath­ing tech­niques Colin uti­lizes must have taken years to mas­ter. You will not believe that what you are hear­ing can come from a sax or clarinet.

Mr. Stetson has put out sev­eral albums includ­ing the out­stand­ing, New History Warfare: Volumes I & II. All of his record­ings are done live with no over­dubs or any trick­ery other than the occa­sional addi­tion of reverb. You can find him fre­quently play­ing in the New York City area, par­tic­u­larly in Brooklyn more often than not.
After his set at the MusicNow Festival, while receiv­ing thun­der­ous applause, Colin was vis­i­bly exhausted. Sometimes works of genius are quite demanding.

Listen to the videos and clips here to see for your­self the bril­liant Colin Stetson and see how he is push­ing the enve­lope of music and our per­cep­tions of it.

Michael Spurrier. HighStreet. Cincinnati

Judges by Constellation Records