Joseph Shabason – Anne – New Vinyl Lp 2018 Western Vinyl Limited Edition Pressing on ‘Whale Blue’ Colored Vinyl with Download – Ambient / Avant Garde Jazz Secretly Canadian

Anne, the second album By Toronto saxophonist and composer Joseph Shabason, is a tonal essay on degenerative illness. Delicately and compassionately woven with interviews of Shabason’s mother from whom the album takes its name, Anne finds its creator navigating a labyrinth of subtle and tragic emotions arising from his mother’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Across the nine vivid postcards of jazz-laden ambience that comprise the album, Shabason unwraps these difficult themes with great care and focus revealing the unseen aspects of degenerative diseases that force us to re-examine common notions of self, identity, and mortality. Shabason’s uncanny ability to manoeuvre through such microscopic feelings is mirrored by his capacity to execute a similar tightrope-walk through musical genres. His music occupies a specific space that is as palpable as it is difficult to pin labels to. On Anne’s second track “Deep Dark Divide” rays of effected saxophone shine behind clouds of digital synthesizer that echoes the sound of jazz in the late 80s, but with a Jon Hassell-esque depth of sensibility that consciously subverts the stylistic inoffensiveness of that era. There is detail and idiosyncrasy beneath Shabason’s dawn-of-the-CD-era sheen that elevates the album far beyond a mere aesthetic exercise.

Joseph Shabason: Sax, Alto Flute, Ocarina, Percussion, Synth, Field Recordings
Bram Gielen: Bass, Piano
Thom GIll: Guitar, Piano
Phil Melanson: Percussion
Nicole Rampersaud: Trumpet
J.P Carter: Trumpet
Ted Bois: CS-80
Hugh Marsh: Violin
Gigi Masin: Synth
Chris Donnelly: Piano, FX
Robin Dann: Vocals
Felicity Williams: Vocals
Kate Allen: Percussion
Interview: Anne Shabason