SARAH PEEBLES - Delicate Paths (Unsounds)
Sarah Peebles is a Toronto-based American composer, improviser and installation artist whose distinctive approaches to sound-based art include acoustic and amplified improvisation on the shô – the Japanese mouth-organ used in gagaku – and integrated media works involving native bees, wasps and pollination ecology. Sarah Peebles’ recent explorations of the sho focus on the instrument’s ethno-botanical and ethno-zoological connections to ancient Asia. In her foreword to ‘Delicate Paths’ she delves into the shô’s history, evolution and present-day connections to people, habitat, animals and culture.
Contemporary compositions and improvisation have become a part of The shô repertoire since the 1960s, and its arresting pipe-organ sound has drawn fans from around the world. The music of ‘Delicate Paths’ features acoustic shō solos and group improvisations with Evan Parker, Nilan Perera and Suba Sankaran, electroacoustic music and highlights unusual approaches to recording the shô. The intimate, dry sound reflects the instrument in its most exposed context.
The listening experience is contemplative and sensuous, immersing one in the luminous sound of this traditional instrument, approached in a contemporary way. Each solo is dedicated to a present or historic element of the shô.
This release also features “Arborrations”, a short online video by guests film makers John Creson and Adam Rosen.
www.unsounds.com
sarahpeebles.net
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