About the Music

It may not be the most graceful analogy, but works of art get digested by time.

 

From the beginning of codified expression – the first cave painting or the first rhythms – art starts with something, someone else uses it, makes it different, puts something on top of it, takes something away.

 

There’s something about early music that appeals to the idea of taking an existing concept, and making it different. Hymns, folk songs, poems, religious chants, church services, drinking songs – everything was up for grabs.

 

Something changed in the last few centuries: perhaps, once music was ubiquitously printable and distributable, the intentions of the composer became set in stone, not to be tampered with. As we know, the 20th century helped deconstruct that development. Decades before we had digital upheaval in the music world, we had jazz, which also embraced the idea of honoring someone’s creation by making something different with it. We use this palette of instrumentation, improvisation and spotlighting to then enter some interesting territory.