Discography

The Turning Centre Of A Still World

FULL ALBUM INFO
cstrecords.com/cst154

BANDCAMP
https://jasonsharp.bandcamp.com/

Montréal saxophonist and electroacoustic composer Jason Sharp presents his third album on Constellation. The Turning Centre Of A Still World is Sharp’s first purely solo record and his most lucid, poignant, integral work to date. Following two acclaimed albums composed around particular collaborators and guest players, Sharp conceived his third as an interplay strictly bounded by his own body, his acoustic instrument, and his evolving bespoke electronic system.

The Turning Centre Of A Still World is a singular sonic exploration of human-machine calibration, interaction, expression and biofeedback. These immersive, intensive, widescreen electronic compositions would sit comfortably as a masterful and stellar contribution to the space/sci-fi/synth soundtrack genre, owing to their overall sound palette and oceanic scope. But this is ultimately deeper, grittier, earthier stuff – pulsing with terrestrial granularity, charting subterranean geographies of the heart and soul.

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Gates of Heaven

From Constellation Records: “Gates of Heaven” showcases Jason’s bold and inventive style of improvisation, rendered even more affecting by filmmaker Guillaume Vallée’s striking visuals. Inspired by the musical beauty of Sharp’s piece and its recording in a synagogue, Vallée began processing old Super8 footage through analog video tools to suggest the soft, dark ambience fitting for a place of worship. “I wanted the images to be sculpted by the music, as a pure depiction of the emotional states of mind this piece puts me in,” Vallée explains. “Gates of Heaven” is a tremendous work, and we’re thrilled to present it as the fourth instalment in the Corona Borealis series.

Stand Above The Streams

“A triumph. There’s so much going on in this record it’s hard to know what to highlight – sounds rise up like condensing steam against modular electronic mutations that couldn’t be any less their opposite. It meets in the most remarkable of intersections, between Sharp’s doomy, devastated playing and his warm, hopeful heart.” Norman Records

“Sharp’s confluence of primal and visionary techniques proves he is a singular talent on a record that is startlingly unfamiliar yet strangely lucid. The sheer variety of resonance and expression created by electrical processes and his playing are enthralling… a work of highly tuned suspense.” musicOHM

“Conjured via his custom rig incorporating various modes of electronic synthesis, all of which he combines with the snaking rasp of his saxophone, the effect is mesmerizing – resembles Stars Of The Lid pursuing the Sun Ra Arkestra into an electricity substation.” Electronic Sound

“Sharp continues to synthesize his vast array of influences into his distinctive style of electroacoustic music, leading to even more microscopic detail and alien timbres. Stand Above The Streams makes it clear that the home of post-rock is carving out a niche as the home of whatever lies beyond.” The Wire

From Constellation Records:  “From his roots as a saxophonist in Montréal’s fertile jazz and improv scene, Sharp developed as a soloist with drone-based durational music, circular breathing, and an increasing exploration of the body and technology. His impressive 2016 debut A Boat Upon Its Blood was a molten and musically diverse work of modern composition inspired by a Robert Creeley poem, distinguished by Sharp’s use of a heart monitor and amplified breath to trigger various rhythmic and textural electronic elements – alongside his own saxophone playing and contributions from guest players on violin and lap steel guitar. Stand Above The Streams expands on this approach, with Sharp having further developed his custom Midi and synthesis apparatuses, and most notably collaborating on these compositions with Adam Basanta, whose renowned practice in sound art, sound installation and autonomous sound systems makes for impressively immersive, layered and complex new work.

Through four parts each running in the 10-minute range, Stand Above The Streams conjures an evocative, abstracted survey of organic nature, perhaps from on high, like a satellite scanning and processing data across diverse and slowly changing landscapes. The album also sits very comfortably alongside the recent resurgence in synth-based soundtrack music (John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream et al) – though as alien as it can sometimes sound, there is an unmistakable human element and underlying warmth that courses through the tensile strength of this music, electrifying it with the viscera of the body.

A Boat Upon Its Blood

“Easily one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve heard in 2016, an emotive collation of avant garde and beyond-post that will likely chill you to the core. I love how this record trembles. It’s a sign of how superbly Sharp can build the bubbling process of anxiety, that while this record tries on so many different sound ideas – the hissier, more ear-crackling noise and glitch of “In The Construction of the Chest”; the full-on free jazz noise blast of “A Blast at Best” – it reaches the heights it does through a precise approach to structure and narrative, an obsession with keeping some unspoken atmosphere at the centre. Cerebral music that beats the heart.” Norman Records

Taking its title(s) from Robert Creeley’s poem “The Heart”, A Boat Upon Its Blood deploys the human metronome of amplified pulse as a recurring undercurrent, with compositions that incorporate electro-acoustic and musique concrète strategies, drone, noise, electronics, methodical dissonance, tone poem, layered rhythmic and melodic figures, and improvisation.

Recorded by Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt Zion, Vic Chesnutt) at the Hotel2Tango in Montréal and mixed and mastered by Jesse Zubot (Tanya Tagaq, Drip Audio Records), A Boat Upon Its Blood is a genre-defying album with a highly immersive and satisfying sound palette that impels deep listening and demands to be taken in as a whole. – Constellation Records

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Selected Discography