The Analog Sublime

01_Intro

There is an intrinsic connection between visual media and the music that I make. Working primarily in instrumental music I often am drawing from visual inspiration whether it be film, still images, installations… This can greatly inform a wide variety of aspects of the music from the orchestration, harmonic, and rhythmic content to the actual structure of a piece or album as a whole.  

 I will often begin by considering the orchestration and harmonic content in terms of a palette of colours to work with. Improvising and playing within that chosen palette can then bring to focus imagery, narrative, and emotional content which eventually comes to shape as a composition. 

Jason Sharp

02_Unwinding Surrender

As an outside influence, working with filmmakers and visual artists collaboratively has informed me greatly on the use of space and pacing in order to compliment the medium.  

 Daïchi in particular has taught me much about the balance of sound with moving images as he typically brings his near final works to me to craft a musical performance to, always leaving ineffable space in the image for the resulting soundtrack to provide interplay as an equal counterpart. Working with him in this way continues to help me hone my own craft by keeping the sensibility of his visual medium in mind throughout my projects.

Jason Sharp

03_Velocity of Being

Film unfolds in time and so does music. But the two “time-based” arts can also aspire, paradoxically, to the subversion of time.

I’m interested in that aspect. I do tend to think of film (and its visual texture, tone and movement) in musical terms.

Daïchi Saïto

04_Blossoming Rest

Choosing a sequence for these images established a visual road map for the record beginning with an expansion from sunrise, an exploration of 6 distinctly different canvases, followed by a contraction back to sunset.

 These images led me to narrowing the orchestration of electronic timbres and determining what type of physical practice would be required to animate the composition towards the desired emotional effect reflective of the image I had paired it with. I printed out all the images and placed them in order in the recording studio to both track and mix to. The final titles emerged after listening back to the results. 

Jason Sharp

05_Upwelling Hope

I always start with an image. A recognition that it has significance is the beginning. Being a filmmaker, I work with multiple. I produce many images. And I erase as many.

In the end, what’s left constitutes a finished film, and that image I had in the beginning, which no longer is an image in the film at that point, has become what you might call a concept, or a theme.

Daïchi Saïto

06_Humility of Pain

Structured improvisation has had a major impact on my approach to filmmaking. Film has its own inherent rhythm – the beat of 24 frames per second – and musicality. Actually, such a kinship makes it particularly difficult and risky for a filmmaker to enlist musical collaboration. But I’ve been very lucky in this regard – working with Jason has always been enlightening for me.

Daïchi Saïto

07_Everything Is Waiting For You

The track “Everything Is Waiting For You” was very much a discovery for me.  It was nearly non-existent going into my last couple of days recording. I wanted to have a track that accentuated the rise and fall of the heart rate from a slow calm physical pace to a fully exerted state and then attempt to return to as close to a resting heart beat as possible within the length of the track.

 In order to accomplish this I needed to perform without my saxophone to focus on the breath manipulation necessary to reach a noticeable acceleration and deceleration. The foundation of the track was accomplished by first standing still breathing slowly and deliberately, followed by running on the spot with increasing intensity of short breaths, and then stopping to return to slow, long, and deliberately extended inhalations and exhalations.

After capturing this I then composed the piece to the recorded physical arc by using the heart rate to trigger all of the textural and percussive elements while writing the harmonic content to fall in time with the documented breathing.  It was the one track on the album that was slightly reverse engineered and its success heavily relied on the relationship between breathing and heart rate to create musical interest. 

Jason Sharp

08_Outro

This album was partly a product of this incredibly fragile period of time in that the music was developed during a period of isolation. Due to the sudden emergence of the pandemic the original date for the recording session had to be postponed.  This gave me more time to nurture and hone the techniques behind this music alone in my studio.

The concept of humanizing electronics with heart rate and breath triggers is something I have been exploring for quite a while now. Having previously documented my work with this concept over two records for Constellation Records in trio format followed by a duo, I already had in mind that this would be a solo effort.  

In committing to this concept I had to gain a certain proficiency of my electronic orchestration and the pandemic provided a unique period to focus and further expand this. Through this process I found reprieve from the stresses of this isolated and tumultuous period. The resulting music therefore exposed what was a deeply personal process while being very reflective of this global event.  

Jason Sharp