The opening track on Robert Takahashi Crouch’s last album, Jubilee, is the 19-minute “A Ritual,” culled from a longer, two-hour improvisational piece. For Ritual Variations, out on May 6 via Room40, he commissioned seven friends and artists to use the original two-hour recording as source material for further investigations and contemplations on the intimate nature of the music. The entire release is fantastic, but France Jobin’s stunning 37-minute “A Ritual / For a Daydream” stands out.
Few artists create longform works as enveloping and engaging as Jobin. On “A Ritual / For a Daydream,” she gently pushes open the sound structures of the original to let the daylight pour in. Where Crouch’s original captures a deeply personal exchange between two people, Jobin builds a world where can all find connection and communion. Glacial tones are infused with grit and stretched across delicate architecture to create gossamer sound webs that hold us close together. It’s a beautiful treatise on how the most intimate aspects of sound can be building blocks for deeper, wider bonds.
Ritual Variations is available to pre-order from Room 40 HERE and will be released on May 6 with reworks from France Jobin, Lawrence English, Yann Novak, and more.
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