Every once and a while I’ll discover an artist that deals their music only with the utmost originality. This theoretical artist can create a certain mood instantaneously–they make it look easy too–and I must say, Colin Stetson fits this bill pretty damn well. All I know of the man and his music is primarily laid upon “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges”, a shimmering piece of eery avant-garde jazz fused with electronic and ambient elements.
Going into the album, you get a slow build-up of what turns into a massive rumbling of a horn that feels as if it is shaking the very ground. “Awake on Foreign Shores” is one of the most intense areas of the album, sweeping into “Judges”, which almost sounds like a dance track, possessing a beat driven by horse hooves and odd, overly distorted vocal hums. There is something about this song that just hits me in a really dramatic way, all the way through with the constant rattling of the saxophone.
“New History 2” also receives deserved breaks of spoken word amongst the music, which could have ended up super cheesy, but the delivery is absolutely solid especially on tracks like “A Dream of Water”. With this female voice embedded over sounds I have never heard come out of a saxophone, I swear, I could have felt my heart beating more and more as she sped up her line delivery later on in the song. The album also receives a guest vocal treatment from Laurie Anderson on “I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes”, which is absolutely heart-wrenching with the music hidden behind her and is actually an outstanding lyrical feat as a blues song.
Stetson’s artistry shows just as much on the B-side as it had on the A-side, from “Clothed in the Skin of the Dead” to “The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man”, the quality here does not cease to impress me. However, the most interesting track off of the album is “Red Horses (Judges II)”. The whole thing just feels like action is going to be taken, somewhere, somehow, but “when?” is sort of my question.
Everything about “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges” sounds so unfamiliar, yet extremely palatable, off-beat, yet seemingly sane in its presentation. The message brought up on the album is also not uncommon, but the album takes such an ambitious approach to getting across this message and succeeds so well at it that I can’t help to adore it.
WINNER: “New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges” by Colin Stetson
WHY: It’s a beautiful sounding record that breaks oh so many sound barriers with its complete originality.
Fermata over Whole Rest 