Next month will see 7K! Records release a new compilation entitled Wind Layers, marking the latest edition in their compilation series Layers. Featuring twenty-one songs by twenty-one artists, this collection “focusses on wind instruments and their influence on the contemporary classical multiverse, with musical creations that delicately balance acoustic expression, electronic refractions and ambient recall”, as the label explains. The compilation includes tracks from celebrated trombone player and composer Peter Zummo, Hamburg pianist, producer and composer Niklas Paschburg, Norwegian maestro Håkon Kornstad, Sardinian sound researcher Eugenio Caria aka Saffronkeira, Hungarian jazz trumpeter and composer Barabás Lőrinc, seminal multi-reedist Doug Wieselman and many other stellar artists.
Wind Layers opens magnificently with ‘Beyond the Break’, an unreleased track written and recorded by sax super-hero Colin Stetson. He commented:

“Originally recorded as part of my last solo record, ‘All This I Do For Glory’, ‘Beyond the Brake’ is a turning of attention back towards where and what was left behind. It is that one last look before the page turns, before the next thought emerges and this one falls away. ‘All This I do for Glory’ was always intended as one side of a coin, and so I thought it fitting to share this piece now, in the time before the flip side comes to be.”

Listen to ‘Beyond the Break’ below.

Wind Layers is out on June 25th through 7K! Records

New music from sax super hero and composer Colin Stetson is always marvellous news. After composing the soundtrack for Hereditary last Spring, Stetson has scored a new series called The First, which debuted this month on Hulu. His music was crucial for the series as a creative element, as Executive Producer Beau Willimon explains:

“More than anything, it was Colin Stetson’s music that inspired the creation of The First. His compositions and performance style were unlike anything I had ever heard. They take you on a vast journey, both epic and intimate.”

Stetson also commented on it:

“The music of The First is built on a foundation of stark and intimate qualities as exemplified by much of my solo saxophone repertoire, enhanced and expanded upon in every direction, from the epic orchestral character of horn and low brass fanfare, to the fragility and humanly intimate nature of muted solo piano. The breadth and scope of the overall narrative, comprised of these many real and extremely human stories of ambition, of love, and of grief and loss, has made it possible for me to fully explore such a multitude of aural approaches, resulting in a score which is as sonically and stylistically disparate as the personal stories of each of our characters, woven together by the common thread and themes of this grand shared purpose and of the sacrifices made by all in it’s service.”

The soundtrack came out last Friday on New Deal/Record Collection, with a vinyl edition due out later this winter. The chilling and magnificent ‘The End’ is now available to stream. Take a listen below.