By Riel Lynch
Colin Stetson is a saxophone player from Montreal who plays like no other. He released his Polaris-nominated sophomore album New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges in Feburary 2011 and it’s still making waves—because of his unusual techniques, which allow him to play notes continuously for several minutes. Besides playing solo shows, he plays in Belle Orchestre, has opened for Arcade Fire, collaborated with Bon Iver, and has played in festivals around the world. He took enough time to breathlessly answer the phone and talk to Stylus.
Stylus: How do you breathe in an entirely different fashion for extended periods of time and not pass out?
Colin Stetson: Well, you aren’t getting any less air then you are breathing regularly. It’s just a different way, like you said. Sometimes you actually get a little more oxygen than normal. You breathe through your nose while air is coming through your mouth, so there is no lack of air. After awhile, your muscles in your face start to break down, not so much in your lungs.
Stylus: Where was this technique learned?
CS: From my high school teacher, I was around 15. This was something he had just learned, and he found it difficult to do, because it was better to learn early on. The hardest part is tricking your body to allow air to come in down through your nose. I don’t think it took me anymore than a week to figure out how to do it. I don’t even remember not being able to do it. It definitely takes awhile to adjust and to find your equilibrium and not give so much air that you pass out.
Stylus: Contrasting between your first album New History Warfare Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, I found that in your first, you are telling this story… you can hear it. But in your second, you’re still telling a story, but it’s much more advanced in its details. How was this transition made?
CS: The transition between the two albums was actually the longest bracket of time that I’ve really spent focused on that solo plane of composition. I did this album on the side of a lot of things I was working on. I think it fits thematically in the trilogy; it’s very aquatic, it’s very amorphous, really churning. There’s a lot of creation going on. And it’s still not fully formed. Since that record was finished, I’ve started to perform solo and to write more and to really bring myself to a high level of proficiency, playing-wise. So, in Vol. 2 I had a lot more freedom—things are fully developed and realized. But thematically I feel like that’s where I wanted to go with the second one. A definite and concrete place. There’s character and scenery and all this really tangible physicality that the first one although is not devoid of, lacks it to a certain degree.
Stylus: You’ve said that you’re doing a lot besides just your solo projects. What are you working on?
CS: I’m constantly doing recording projects for people, doing horns and arrangements. One of them just came out on Timber Timbre’s record, and another will on Bon Iver’s in June. There’s a number of things that will be coming out the rest of this year and next year. Long-term collaborations I continue to work with are Laurie Anderson and Bon Iver, who I’m now joined with and will be touring with for the foreseeable future.
Stylus: Throughout all these collaborations and solo shows, where in the world have you been brought to? Including festivals and such.
CS: I’ve not yet been to South America. I’ve been to Asia four times, I was in Mali, bringing my bass saxophone to the middle of the Sahara Dessert, and been to Australia and New Zealand, and Europe many times.
Stylus: How do you find the receptiveness between crowds cross-continentally? Similar?
CS: I guess that’s kind of a yes and no. The general feeling is that in Europe there is a built-in audience who are purveyors of experimental and avant-garde, or ‘art music’. But at the same time there is a growing scene for that here and in the states and Canada that people are getting into. It’s like a new thing, an artistic trend, in the past decade or whatever that people are getting into. Bands like the Arcade Fire and the National that have brought in the aspect of classical music and minimalist music; different instrumentations. Really opening people up, using it like a springboard into a lot of other things.
Stylus: How did you come to play with Belle Orchestre?
CS: Well, me and Sarah from Belle Orchestre and Arcade Fire have been together for the past 5 years. Belle Orchestre was the first group I played with in Montreal. I guested at the Spectrum and I’ve always really adored their music. We collaborated together for their latest release; a remix of one of their songs. A good and organic mix. It’s nice to be a peripheral member of that band.
Stylus: It’s good to grow on your own, but in the same time, it’s nice to have a group of people you can grow with, and you’re growing on your own too.
CS: Family is definitely very very very important part of all this. It’s key that I keep a good balance between with my communal music relationships and the aspects of my life that are all by themselves.
Stylus: How did you find incorporating the vocals in your second album with Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden [My Brightest Diamond]?
CS: For the first album, I had all these ideas floating around; like I loved the way that early hip-hop records were put together with found clips. Like clips of people speaking, or taking things out of context and putting them into speaking; re-contextualizing, telling a new story because of their juxtaposition. I did not do that to the degree that I had planned in the first record because time, etc. So, the only thing I did was clips of Buckminster Fuller speaking, talking about things with his distinctive voice. When I came to the second record I knew I wanted to have a more in-depth utilization of the spoken word in the record. At the time I was working with Laurie and I asked her to collaborate, she agreed. Lucky me! She can make these entire new realities all her own with just a word. Perfect for what I was going for with all these records.
Stylus: Will you attempt at more vocals for the third album then?
CS: I have most of the music and I’m demoing and basically collecting it together, trying to make it walk around and see what it looks like. I’m still writing the ideas for the vocals. I know one person i want, but everything else is up in the air. In the next six months I should have that all hammered out.
Colin Stetson’s latest record was released on Constellation Records, which has been home to artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think, and Vic Chesnutt.