Nightspeak by Friesen / Hume / Waters

Nightspeak is hardly the first time I’ve played with Nate Waters or Andrew Hume, but it is the first time we played as a trio. Everyone involved has been documented here on Shaking Box in some form since 2013. Kinda ridiculous it took this long to do so given our shared time in duos, bands, and as friends.

I think this session managed to place us outside of our respective comfort zones without totally losing it. The set of combined in/experience kept things interesting and exploratory - enough of a shared knowledge to not get shy or uncomfortable, but not so familiar as to be rote or too comfortable. Andrew and I have mostly played together in louder noise/rock contexts, but not so often in this post-whatever you want to call it niche that Nate and I tend to carve. Likewise, Nate and I can make a racket but we don't often start there, and when you play without drums you have more space to fill. Together the 'meeting point' drifts across guideposts both art school and dropout.

The record store jerk in me thinks of this as our "ECMstatic Peace" offering.

There was also an urgency to this meeting. There's the usual January Winter blues, and I was leaving Calgary for a then-indefinite amount of time at the end of the month. I feel it all imbued the session with an elevated sense of movement, exploration, both a beginning and an end. Perhaps subconsciously the 'stakes' were higher. Also, I do not recommend moving across Canada in February.

Nate set up the mics and recording at his basement studio, where the three of us met in the afternoon. I vaguely recall Andrew leaving a cymbal behind, which Nate found outside some weeks or months later when the snow had melted.

Months later I did an initial mix in Montreal. Then the next few years happened. Eventually I returned to the sessions and made a mix and sequence (the pieces in the order that we played them, minus a few) that I was happier with. Better late than never.

--d.f.

small label by D.F.

est 2010

an introduction:
https://bndcmpr.co/893503ab

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