Gaps & Spaces - "Oration". Gaps & Spaces call this an oration, which is to say a speech. There is no speech in it. Instead, the piece begins with a strain of plain violin, dipping and persuading like the opening sentences of a-- well, a speech. There are already signs of discontentment: crackles and drones, electroncis that bring to mind the flecks on an old photograph, the sepia melt of antique film. But then all of a sudden the drums are coming, a mob of drums that crashes into the strings' weak speech and overwhelms it, tumult everywhere. It's the sound of furious progress, and as soon as there's a pause some new voices cast out from it: saxophones singing, hooting, cheering, and finally simply fading, while only the dumb mob lives on.
[On Synoptic Optiks, Gaps & Spaces' Caleb Willitz and Greg Ward are joined by Jeff Parker, Dave Miller, Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, Makaya McCraven and Dominic Johnson. / buy]
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In case you missed it, I've begun writing about songs in a weekly column for the Globe & Mail newspaper. You can see my recent articles here: 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/28, 4/3. I also recently wrote a profile of national treasure Michael Feuerstack.
If you're interested, I also have a few appearances coming up where I'll be talking about Us Conductors (full dates always on the website):
- April 8 • Québec City - Imagination Writers Festival
- April 15 • Montreal - Westmount Public Library
- April 17-18 • Picton, ON - Prince Edward County Authors Festival
- April 24 • Ottawa, ON - Ottawa Writers Fest
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
