Jason Sharp‘s third album, The Turning Centre Of A Still World, is excitingly just days away from its release. The extraordinary Montréal composer, improviser and saxophonist had already enticed us with two singles, ‘Everything Is Waiting For You’ and ‘Blossoming Rest’. Both tracks were offered with accompanying visuals made by experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée, who has also created a full visual album featuring hand-processed & hand-painted Super8 films. Vallée commentes:
“This collaboration with Jason was such an amazing and smooth audiovisual adventure. At the beginning, I was planning to work in a different way than I usually do, with a more minimal approach to the visual. But the more I listened to Jason’s album, the more it brought me elsewhere. I wanted to shoot everything on Super8 and hand-process the whole thing, to grasp the organicism and physicality of the music. Working with the film emulsion made sense to me, with hand-painting and chemical treatment, to get closer to my material and an intuitive symbiosis with the music. I used a film/video hybrid processes, strongly inspired by the work of Al Razutis, a uniquely amazing multimedia artist and pioneer of the film/video hybrid process in the 70s (actually based in British Columbia). I was very happy that Jason was receptive to my process and I did the best I could to visually translate the complexity and beauty of this album.”
Speaking about it, Sharp remarks:
“Guillaume’s interpretation of my music with moving images has been a refreshing coda to an extremely detailed, intensive composition and recording process. His Super8 film treatments inscribe a similar detail and intensity, with vitality and texture that channels the music of The Turning Centre Of A Still World into evocatively abstract visual movements. I’m beyond delighted with the resulting synthesis of our respective mediums and processes, and can’t wait to perform the music live while flooded with this visual work.”
The good news is the full visual album is now available to watch and listen, ahead of its release this Friday. Press play and let yourself drift away.
The Turning Centre Of A Still World is out on August 27th through Constellation
