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KENT, JULIA - Character

Format: LP + CD Label & Cat.Number: Leaf BAY80LP Release Year: 2013 Note: third album by the high-class NYC-based cello-player (& member of ANTHONY & THE JOHNSONS), with a mixture of deeply melancholic / neo-classic compositions of a higher beauty, and more experimental cello-based tracks, with additional drums, piano & other field / microsounds... very structured & professionally performed, all instrumental, as a whole full of contemplation and sad beauty... lim. vinyl version incl. CD version of the same album Price (incl. 19% VAT): €17.50 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info "Emotionale Klangfülle: drittes Soloalbum der Cellistin von Antony And The Johnsons. Gelegenheiten zur Entspannung sind selten geworden für die in New York lebende kanadische Cellistin Julia Kent. Mit der Cello-Rockband Rasputina gelang sie in den 1990er-Jahren erstmals ins Licht der Öffentlichkeit. Danach war die Cellistin von Antony And The Johnsons auf verschiedenen Veröffentlichungen zu hören (u. a. für Nils Frahm, Low, The Dirty Three, Olafur Arnalds). Die Möglichkeit, ihre eigene emotionale und kreative Welt auszuloten, nutzte sie bereits zweimal: 2007 mit dem Soloalbum "Delay" und 2011 mit "Green And Grey". "Character", ihr drittes Album, ist gleichzeitig ihr Debüt für das Label Leaf. Es entstand in Kents eigenem Studio und verfeinert die Technik des Layerings, mit der verschiedene Cellomotive miteinander verwoben werden. Als Begleitung ihres eigentlichen Instruments spielt sie Natur- und Umgebungsgeräusche ein, die eine Art Ersatzstimme sind und zusammen mit dem Cello für eine erstaunliche Klangfülle sorgen. So entstand ein sehr persönliches Album voller Schönheit und kontemplativer Ruhe. Die Vinylversion ist limitiert. // Opportunities for introspection have come few and far between for Canadian-born, New York City-based cellist Julia Kent. After coming to prominence as a member of the cello-driven group Rasputina in the ‘90s, she went on to arrange and play on numerous recordings and tour extensively as a member of Antony and the Johnsons, among other projects. The opportunity to explore her own emotional and creative world came with her solo LPs, Delay (2007) and Green and Grey (2011), and it is something she appropriates fully on her captivating debut for The Leaf Label, Character. Recorded alone in her home studio, Character develops the layering techniques Kent brought to the fore on her previous solo material, the flow of intertwining cello motifs working as an external representation of competing internal meditations. “I ended up thinking about the process of life,” explains Kent. “How sometimes a narrative in fiction is meant to mirror the chronology of human life, and how our lives, in a way, can resemble works of fiction, but without the possibility of controlling the outcome the way an author can.” Thus, she called the album Character, a reference to the notion of humans being characters in their own narrative. In the past the cellist has adopted field recordings to accompany her playing; Delay saw recordings taken from various airports as Kent became fascinated by their ambience, whilst samples were taken from nature as she explored boundaries between electronic and organic sounds on Green and Grey. In Character, their somewhat hidden nature is just as important, reflecting the need for introspection that drives the album. “Incorporated sounds are important,” Kent explains. “They contrast and complement the cello, my primary instrument, and also evoke the concept of a voice without being, literally, a voice. So I used a lot of found and processed sounds to try to achieve that: from matches being struck, to wineglasses, to the sound of pen on paper, to an ancient autoharp that, over time, ended up being detuned in a way that created an amazing sonority.” Underpinning it all is the Canadian’s love and attention to detail for recording and looping; she’s an artist who derives pleasure from the familiarity of recurring patterns, yet also sees each revolution as a chance to adjust and alter, and so subtly moving a soundscape onto a different plane altogether. A loop, too, means that no mistake is truly an error, more a facet that can be expanded upon when the next cycle comes round. “I love that events within a loop can become integral through repetition,” she enthuses, “So you learn to embrace the accident, or the serendipitous sound that takes the music in an unexpected direction.” If her first two albums saw Kent developing her individuality, Character is perhaps the first time she’s had the courage to take what she’s learnt and deliver an album of such depth and contemplative beauty. “It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to enter other people’s musical worlds and discover how they communicate their ideas,” she insists, “But I love the autonomy of creating and performing entirely alone.” It’s all too easy to forget that, in a world of unprecedented access to information, advice, opinion and influence, the most important voice to anyone is their own. It’s something Julia Kent knows, though, and has sought to hear over the din of her surroundings, in doing so producing her most confident solo statement yet." [label info] www.theleaflabel.com