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FYEAR
FYEAR

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    “A furious indictment of our times, a vision of fierce conviction for the future.” BBC Radio 3
    “A lament to a burning planet, an end-of-times feel à la Matana Roberts.” ★★★★ MOJO 

    Save 30% on any of Jason Sharp's five favourite Constellation albums, with the purchase of FYEAR.
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    Listen to a playlist of FYEAR influences curated by Jason Sharp (Spotify)

     

    CST177   180gLP • CD • DL

    Release date: 05 April 2024

    Click here for shipping info 

    Duration: 43:41

     

    Shop Indie:
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    Streaming Links:
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    "A lament to a burning planet, this restless debut from Montréal avant-garde-jazz ensemble has an end-of-times feel à la Matana Roberts."MOJO 

     “The dissonances will become sonic complements, the noise will become pleasing and the future, well, the future might look a bit brighter. As long as we have people living on earth that look at it from a good angle. And who try to come up with ideas of how to understand and then shape our future.” - Veil of Sound

    "The music may alternate between soft and loud passages, but it never veers far from its spirit of dystopian panic. “Pt. VII: Pure Pursuit” weeps for the uncertainty of human existence. To use cultural critic and theorist Mark Fisher’s pungent phrase, their music describes the psychological damage caused by 'the slow cancellation of the future.'" - Art Fuse

    "A furious indictment of our times, a vision of fierce conviction for the future."BBC Radio 3

    "As the pace gears up with some tumbling drums and squealing strings, the staccato reaches towards delirium. What emerges from these early encounters is the completeness of FYEAR’s vision and execution, a dramatic synergy between word and sound as imposing as some of Moor Mother’s work and as emotionally draining as Kae Tempest’s stark realism." - John Parry, Backseat Mafia

    FYEAR is a power octet led by composer Jason Sharp and poet/writer Kaie Kellough, fusing spoken word voices with genre-bending compositions for electronics, two drummers, processed saxophone, pedal steel and violins. FYEAR melds drone, modern chamber, out-jazz, ambient metal, post-hardcore, avant-rock and electroacoustic maximalism in an integrated work the opposite of collage or pastiche; it always sounds like a wholly unified ensemble/aesthetic. Kellough’s poetic materiality conveys acute political-existential themes and plays elemental, cut-up instrumental/semiotic roles.

    Sharp and Kellough have collaborated on wordsound projects for over a decade, performing widely at avant-garde festivals across Canada, developing a symbiotic relationship where spoken text knits into the very fabric of instrumentation and composition. FYEAR has been emerging from these ongoing processes and performances since 2016, with the intensive interaction of two vocalists, and texts that anxiously interrogate our present and future capitalist polycrisis. The vision of a larger instrumental ensemble began to consolidate in 2018-2019 as Sharp continued writing arrangements and developing the music in tandem with Kellough’s refinement of the spoken word arc. 

    This debut album by FYEAR documents its resulting signature 40-minute multi-movement work, which was fully realized in 2020 and has been performed several times over the past three years. The ensemble’s first performance was commissioned during pandemic lockdown by Jazzahead! Festival (Bremen DE), recorded in an empty Montréal venue, and premiered as a broadcast in April 2021 (subsequently rebroadcast by several festivals in Europe, Britain and Canada that year). The group’s proper live debut on 11 September 2021 at Send + Receive (Winnipeg CA) was roundly hailed as a festival highlight, with rapturous receptions following at live performances during the 2022 Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival (Montréal CA) and the 2023 Moers Festival in Germany. FYEAR is an undeniably gripping and singular live experience of electroacoustic, semiotic, musical and political substance. The album captures the balance of widescreen dynamic intensity and unflinchingly urgent grittiness of the work, further contextualized by extensive printed artwork culled from FYEAR’s live visual projections (by acclaimed graphic artist Kevin Yuen Kit Lo). 

    Jason Sharp has released three solo albums on Constellation and has appeared on records by artists as diverse as Roscoe Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Nadah El Shazly, Ratchet Orchestra, Sam Shalabi’s Land Of Kush and Elisapie. Kaie Kellough has been a sound performer for two decades; his poetry and short story writing have been nominated for multiple awards and have won the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Other FYEAR members have credits that include Mingus Big Band, Aaron Parks, Lhasa, Bell Orchestre, Patrick Watson, and various award-winning film soundtrack works.


    PACKAGING NOTES

    180gLP pressed at Optimal (DE) comes in 350gsm jacket and 300gsm inner both printed LE-UV on uncoated Arktika artboard, with a 36"x12" fold-out art insert and download card. Artwork by FYEAR live visuals/graphics member Kevin Yuen Kit Lo.

    CD comes in a 20pt uncoated paperboard mini-gatefold jacket with inner dust sleeve for the disc. Artwork by FYEAR live visuals/graphics member Kevin Yuen Kit Lo.


    CREDITS

    FYEAR is:
    Jason Sharp (electronics, bass saxophone)
    Kaie Kellough (voice)
    Tawhida Tanya Evanson (voice)
    Joe Grass (pedal steel)
    Jesse Zubot (violin)
    Joshua Zubot (violin)
    Stefan Schneider (drums)
    Tommy Crane (drums)
    Kevin Yuen Kit Lo (typography and visual design)

    Produced, composed, and arranged by Jason Sharp.
    Texts by Kaie Kellough.