Saltland

A Common Truth

More climate change-inspired chamber pieces by Montrealbased cellist-composer.

Saltland 2013’s I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us debut found Rebecca Foon’s soaring yet ominous strings and ethereal vocals blended with percussive electronics and interventions from miscellaneous collaborators. Its nine-song successor deploys a similar palette, but with Foon’s cello, whether raw or processed, the unequivocal centre, supported here and there by Bad Seed Warren Ellis’s violin and pump organ. A passionate environmentalist, Foon’s music deals, according to the accompanying blurb, in “the intimacy of the local/personal and the hope of the global/collective”, and while such palpably pressing matters are only implied by the melancholy drones and lyrical bow-work of opener To Allow Us All To Breathe, or the toweringly symphonic but lyrically opaque I Only Wish This For You, one of five vocal-ornamented essays here, the geo-political subtext only adds gravity to Foon’s already compellingly brooding soundscapes.