I have often said I never read a press release before I play an album, as this allows me to form my own opinion before reading about it, so when I first played this album, it was a huge shock to me. Discus Music are one of my favourite labels, and they tend to release mostly improvised and highly experimental music, but there were sections of this which were highly composed and contained lyrics and vocal melodies that had obviously been worked out in advance. There were even some choral sections, so just what was going on? That is not to say there isn’t improvisation as well, but it had been curated into something which was both pushing musical boundaries and being more steadfast in its approach, with vocals and lyrics which were taking us on a journey which felt almost orchestral in places.
The main person behind this, label owner and musician Martin Archer, found himself mostly composing, arranging and collaging (his term) the music which was recorded between 2023 and 2025 (normally albums on this label are recorded within a day or two) and playing very little. The project only truly came into focus when he read the book “The Hidden Life Of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben, which gave him the direction and being introduced to the music of Claire McAllister where he found the voice. Like all releases on Discus the CD comes in a digipak with full details of who played on what (there are a large number of musicians which I will not list here), plus a booklet containing all lyrics, and I would recommend playing the album on headphones with the package readily to hand, just like we used to back in the old days when listening to music was an end to itself.
Claire is a wonderful singer, not just with words but using her vocals to paint pictures when words will not do, while the accompaniment may be arranged and developed or come from improvisations which have been manipulated into something which is dynamic, peaceful, yet full of angst and depth. I don’t know how Claire managed to deliver the vocal melodies over the top of music which at times is unstructured and is always complex, yet somehow, she did that just that and the result is somewhat magical. It straddles multiple musical camps and styles, and at times is almost New Age but the real instrumentation never allows it to go quite that far. It is a remarkable release which needs to be truly listened to when one has the time to do just that, and the more it is played the more it reveals its beauty. As I play it now, there is a tui somewhere outside my window adding its own voice, and it combines wonderfully well in this story of the trees and their lives.
Rating: 9/10
Links:
https://discus-music.org/