Hell yes. You might wanna start clapping your hands and nodding your heads now to save time, y’all; because experimental composer/performer (and, according to Facebook, first-chair saxophonist at The Colin Steton Ensemble and graduate of The School Of Life) Colin Stetston has officially resurfaced to announce his first new solo album since 2013’s not exactly terrible New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light. And he fully expects your abject adulation.
Immodestly titled All This I Do For Glory, the six tracks of music Steton has ritualistically cogitated onto wax this time around seem no less-so: “[The new album] is a reasoning and exploration of the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the greek tragedies,” he says. “As a narrative, it exists temporally somewhere between 2015’s “Never Were The Way She Was” (with Sarah Neufeld) and the 1st volume of the NHW Trilogy.”
In addition to engineering and mixing the whole thing himself, Stetson was hellbent-as-ever to perform and capture all the prodigious sounds of his instrument live (i.e., with with no overdubs or loops), utilizing unique mic’ing techniques and combinations to obtain his desired timbres and textures. But the new work also apparently belies the influence of “early nineties electronica of artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre, evident in the more pointed role played by the instruments’ many percussive elements.” (And shit, that’s just the early-90s electronica rack’s A section.)
Anyway, you can judge the auspicious righteousness of all this glorious stuff Stetson has apparently done for The Glory for your-damn-self on April 28, when the album will be available in white vinyl (limited to 1,ooo), black vinyl, and “mini gatefold digi CD” versions, any/all of which come with digital downloads, and and/all of which you can pre-order now while you watch the video for new track “Spindrift” and contemplate (as Stetson seemingly has) what it would feel/sound like to “spin” and “drift” at the same. (This seems pretty damn close.) Newly announced dates are down there too.
All This I Do For Glory tracklist:
01. All This I Do For Glory
02. Like Wolves on the Fold
03. Between Water and Wind
04. Spindrift
05. In the Clinches
06. The Lure of the Mine
Dates:
03.25.17 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
05.12.17 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right
05.13.17 - Burlington, VT - ArtsRiot
05.15.17 - Toronto, ON - The Great Hall
04.20.17 - Antwerpen, Belgium - De Roma
04.23.17 - London, UK - The Jazz Cafe
04.28.17 - Stans, Switzerland - Chäslager- Stanser Musiktage
06.17.17 - Birmingham, UK - TBA