Your cart (0 item)

KENT, JULIA - Temporal (lim. white vinyl)

Format: LP + CD Label & Cat.Number: LEAF Records BAY 106VX Release Year: 2019 Note: JULIA KENT's new album is a "meditation on the transitory and fragile nature of existence", most material was originally made for dance theatre productions... "The electronic manipulations are subtler, with Julia sampling voices from a theatre production and processing them into unrecognisable textures: ghosts of the source material." lim. 500 white vinyl, + CD of the same album Price (incl. 19% VAT): €22.50 More Info Temporal is a meditation on the transitory and fragile nature of existence. Much of the music that comprises the album was originally written to accompany theatre and dance productions. “The initial inspiration was more external than internal, in that many of these pieces began as a response to a text or a choreographic concept,” Julia explains, “but they all seemed to be coming from the same emotional world and it made sense to weave them together into a record.” After the threat of violent release on previous album Asperities, Temporal’s relationship to the physical world manifests itself in a more organic, human sound. The electronic manipulations are subtler, with Julia sampling voices from a theatre production and processing them into unrecognisable textures: ghosts of the source material. “I included the processed voices to acknowledge the genesis of the music and also because I wanted to incorporate vocals in a way that turned voice into texture, and blurred the lines between sonic elements.” https://music.juliakent.com/album/temporal "Canadian cellist, Julia Kent, is back with a new album for Leaf, a gloomy, dark, delicious journey of texture, cinematic ambience and modern classical timbre. I've witnessed Julia play before, with her shoes off working the loop pedals, all dressed in black, as she appears to be in all of her press photos, her hair dark around the sombre face, an arm tattoo, sharp focus on the music. I dive into the description of this artist because I feel her being bleeding in and onto all her works, a natural extension of her mind, expressed in sound throughout time. Is Temporal a hint at our very own existence? Is there a fear or an acceptance thereof? Perhaps a little bit of both as you traverse the dissonance and tension, so well restrained within this composition. The rhythmic plucking of the string counts down the clock from an unknown number. The many-layered cello notes (and tones) create a blanket of unease, but find comfort in their warming. A bass begins to pulse. An organ walks the scale. We are acknowledging "Imbalance" and its ongoing presence in our lives. Too much a leaning to the left, too much a resuming to the right, we tend to float throughout this storm, like a lone lost and tiny buoy. The clouds subside and music perseveres, and then, perhaps, we're not alone, surrounded by others in this "Floating City", where pizzicato notes dance lightly with the piano. This cinematic tendency of the sound appears due to the pieces having been originally written for the theatre and dance productions, repackaged now in album form, for our delight and pleasure. When I perform live with dance and theatre, it makes me enormously aware of the fragility of our physical world. Dancers and actors, anyone whose instrument is their body, have nothing to protect them from the rules of gravity and time. They are so strong, but they’re subject to those demands in a more extreme way because of the physicality of what they’re doing. Onstage, I have an instrument to mediate for me, but they are bare. When I work with dancers, especially, I feel as though there can be an incredible energy exchange. They create a sort of weather system on the stage. -Julia Kent This "weather" is indeed transforming through the album, as you can gather from my words (which I've convoked before digging out the quote above). Even with the delayed echoes of the strings, which practically compose the metre of the album, the album feels organic and inherent, with Kent's emotions permeating through and through. Those willing to connect with Julia on yet another level will find themselves immersed in all she has to say. Recommended for fans of Hildur Guðnadóttir [who seems to be consumed by soundtracks these days -- did you see Chernobyl?], Christina Vantzou, Zoë Keating, Danny Norbury, Greg Haines, and Poppy Ackroyd. A favourite on Leaf which calls for your attention." [Headphone Commute]