The Observer Effect
Meredith Bates
The critical success of Canadian violinist, violist and composer Meredith Bates' 2023 release Tesseract was understandable and surprising in equal measure. Tesseract was unflinchingly original and ambitious in scope. Its six pieces stretched across a more-than-two-hour runtime, patiently examining every possible gradation between pure texture and tone, cohesion and dissolution, dissonance and euphony, all the while thwarting clear allegiances to genre. Its sprawling, uncompromising charisma garnered a JUNO-award nomination for Best Instrumental Music Album, while eliciting hearty praise from the likes of Foxy Digitalis, Bandcamp Daily, the Vancouver Sun, Mexico's La Tempestad and many others.
Bates' follow-up The Observer Effect is an equally substantial statement, remaining committed to the expansive and elusive architecture of its predecessor while turning its curiosity toward different conceptual and textural realms. Unfolding over two sections (or "Books" in Bates' verbiage) that total to roughly 140 minutes of music, The Observer Effect feels more open and immediate in comparison to Tesseract's brooding, churning masses, even if it's laced with a similar psychedelic unease.
This singular interweaving of warmth and tension, magnitude and intimacy emerges straight from the conceptual heart of this project. Its title refers to a key principle in quantum mechanics and philosophy—the notion that the act of observing alters that which is being observed. For Bates, this notion carries literal, musical, metaphorical, and even personal significance. "At its core," she notes "The Observer Effect is about witnessing and being witnessed—the quantum, emotional, and political consequences of that exchange." As such, this is far more than just a novel extramusical scaffolding to her—it's something deeply embedded in the form and sound of the music, as well as her underlying motivations. The constituent pieces, as she says, "investigate perception, illusion, and metamorphosis—the subtle processes through which sound, like identity, shifts under pressure."
So Below (Music from the Film)
Chris Gestrin
Soundtrack to the film 'So Below' by Jeff Carter.
A contemporary reflection on the utopian vision of Charles Fourier (1772-1837), framed in a multi-format cinema landscape variously local, regional, global, and cosmic. Chris Gestrin’s work with ambient and compositional audio was recognized with a Theremin Award for BEST SOUND DESIGN at the 2024 edition of the First Hermetic International Film Festival.
So Below is constructed as a visual essay, while some might call it an “art film”. The visual motifs - such as the prologue’s initial introduction of earth, water, and air - can be understood as symbolic or archetypal, or seen as simply factual material geography, or contemplated as both at once. This sort of weaving between the literal and the symbolic informs Fourier’s concepts, particularly of Unity and Analogy - as underlined through text late in the film. Fire is present in the form of the Sun, rounding out the Elements. Birds appear, often near the water, intermediaries whose “bird’s eye view” is replicated by imagery from tracking satellites, literally machines but which symbolically find the place “midway between the planets and our natural environment” to cultivate the unity of the system Fourier labels Passionate Attraction.
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Tesseract
Meredith Bates
"Bates' forthcoming offering Tesseract picks up where If Not Now left off, and follows that album's psychedelic, quasi-orchestral landscapes all the way out to their dark horizons. Like its predecessor, Tesseract occupies a monumental scale, swelling over two CDs. Her shimmering cascades of treated strings remain a crucial element, yet there's newfound volatility and a steadfast commitment to investigating texture here. Bates' vocabulary within the noise sphere is impressive and evocative; in her hands it proves to be just as malleable and expressive as any other technique in her repertoire. There are certainly moments of bluster and friction, but Bates makes use of the full spectrum available within the domain of pure sound. Her distant creaks and dim crackling pull the listener deeper into her gradually blooming structures, as other textural passages engender a sense of intrigue or suspension. It's a welcome and disquieting contrast to the threads of bowed lyricism that link these six pieces.
Bates' melodic material is more kaleidoscopic than ever on Tesseract too, thanks to her unique resourcefulness with electronics. Listeners do hear violin—there are several gorgeous sections where its natural timbre comes into focus—but they also witness it transforming into everything from a waterlogged piano to distant celestial bells, and from a pipe organ to string orchestra".
Nick Storring / Riparian Media
2024 JUNO NOMINEE 'Instrumental Album of the Year'
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soft metals
Ben Brown
soft metals is a stunning collection of expansive solo metallophone performances that will transport you. Percussionist Ben Brown (Pugs & Crows, Cast, Malleus Trio), and producer, Chris Gestrin, create a vast and surprising sonic landscape from this single instrument. The music emerged from Brown’s weekly practice of accompanying yoga classes and evolved into a substantial body of solo instrumental work.
“Recorded during the isolation and confusion of COVID-19 lockdown life, the hope was for this music to help people find a moment of calm, of escape, of wonder.”
- Ben Brown
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God Complex
Gentle Party
Gentle Party's sophomore album, God Complex, has the trio delivering their patriarchy smashing lyrics on a bed of sumptuous strings, layered vocals, soaring melodic lines, and pumping synth bass. It's an album of epic proportions featuring special guests Peggy Lee, Christine Duncan, Breathing Machines, and Chris Gestrin and artwork by Eva Dominelli.
If Not Now
Meredith Bates
Largely known for her work with the Juno award winning, indie art-rock band, Pugs & Crows, and the chamber-pop group, Gentle Party, Vancouver violinist, Meredith Bates, presents her first solo recording, ‘If Not Now’. Reminiscent of works by William Basinksi and Kara Lis Coverdale, this double album is an epic, ambient music masterpiece featuring layers of processed violin and viola presented in two long form compositions.
Crossing Time - Music from Inside Passage
Chris Gestrin
From 2006-2008, film maker, producer and director Jeff Carter created a short film called 'Inside Passage'. The film is an introspective pairing of Chris Gestrin's mesmerizing, ECM jazz inspired original music and Diarmud Conway's artful and nostalgic vintage super-8 film footage of the various passenger ferry routes in the Pacific Northwest. In August 2020, with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, and 12 years after the completion of the original project, Chris Gestrin compiled all the recorded music from the film's original recording sessions and created the soundtrack album 'Crossing Time - Music from Inside Passage'. It includes new mixes and masters of music from the film, as well as an additional approximately 45 minutes of music which, until this time, had only been in personal archives.
The VARUNA Sessions - 20th Anniversary Edition
Chris Gestrin & Russ Klyne
Back in 1999, keyboardist Chris Gestrin and guitarist Russ Klyne created an electronic music CD featuring ambient soundscapes, melodic guitars and intricate electronic production. It was simply titled 'VARUNA' and was never officially released to the public. Only available as a home-brew CDR, It was hand distributed by Chris and Russ to friends, family and musical colleagues to rave reviews.
In the fall of 2019, Phonometrograph released a double CD 20th anniversary edition of this great music. Featuring not only a newly re-mastered version of the original 8 track CD, but also a full album's worth of new material that Chris and Russ had worked on since the original CD was made.
UNCLE!
Pugs & Crows
On their fourth full-length album UNCLE!, Juno Award winning Vancouver indie rock jazz art folk instrumentalists Pugs & Crows join forces with vocalist Marin Patenaude. Patenaude’s earthy, soulful voice coupled with the band’s trademark cinematic pacing, melodicism, and gritty elegance transports the music to new heights.