Sounds to evoke the beauty of B.C.
Lyons, Bhattacharya create meditative music that complements visual art project
LIMBS OF THE STARS
Somewhere, BC OffSeason Records
Juno Award-winning Vancouver musician Stephen Lyons has spent a good deal of the past year crafting music to accompany visual arts projects.
The latest from the Fond of Tigers offshoot Limbs of the Stars is a single work by Lyons and cellist Shanto Bhattacharya that runs roughly 43 minutes long.
All the creator will say about it is that it is “probably not best paired with high-energy workouts.”
In other words, the piece is a contemplative composition that sits well with its original intention to accompany an art show of the same name.
British Columbia has long inspired music and visual art pairings, and this music is one more example of how living somewhere with such arresting vistas and dramatic backdrops can result in meditative soundscapes.
Here are five things you should know about Somewhere, BC.
1 YOU CAN GO THERE
The art exhibit proper happened already, but the photos that were in the exhibition are available to take in with the soundscape on the OffSeason Records YouTube site.
The black and white images of shadowed mountains and low-lying clouds pair perfectly with the slow ebb and flow of the music.
2 29:54
You would be hard-placed to pick a specific moment or movement in the piece as a favourite. But there is a point at about the 29:54 mark where there is a sudden uptick chiming guitar bit that completely throws your ears off their game.
It’s not jarring, rather just inhabiting a sonic zone into which the music hasn’t previously ventured.
3 SOUNDSCAPES AS OUTLETS
More adventurous musicians have long used lengthy instrumentals as a way to explore avenues where they usually don’t travel. Limbs of the Stars’ other music has been characterized by the same sort of onslaught as Fond of Tigers. But Lyons also plays in a number of more chamber-roots style bands. This falls somewhere in that musical universe, but orbiting from a very long way away.
4 CLARKWALK
If you like what you see and hear with Somewhere, BC, you should check out the ClarkWalk project. This selfpaced/self-guided art walk was conceived as a community art installation where you could begin a walk at Clark Drive and 6th Avenue and take a self-guided and self-paced tour of this neighbourhood, sticking to an area no farther apart than one block east or west of Clark. The idea is to take folks through the area that is a last haven for many in the creative community to find rehearsal/performance/exhibition spaces.
The tour comes complete with a two-part soundtrack composed of many local indie scene musicians.
5 MORE TO COME
Somewhere, BC, is the most recent music posted on the OffSeason site. But this local label has been busy releasing many acts since it began. The back catalogue is well worth perusing as a great example of quality Canadian DIY music.
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