Today, multi instrumentalist and composer Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) and notable percussionist and composer Susie Ibarra are announcing the release of Heart and Breath: Rhythm and Tone Fields (OFFAIR) alongside a gleaming focus track and visualizer “Field II: Slow Drift”.
The project started as a sound pack for creator platform Splice, Ibarra and Parry collaborated remotely using the rhythm of their heartbeats to create each track.
The compositions that emerged are hypnotic fields of sound that seem to float suspended in time and space, unfolding gently in a manner that is at once intimate and expansive, and which connects the listener to their own most primal, internal body rhythms.
Of the recording process Reed Parry said, “This doesn’t sound like any record I’ve ever heard. There’s a sensibility to it that was enabled by remote recording, and the fact that we made our breath into music and then into samples and then we built on that to make an album. I think it’s a great new step to make a record that can exist as component pieces.”
Of “Field II: Slow Drift”, Ibarra said, “these tunings meet in an otherworldly place greeting sound from the southern Philippines with a western cadence that gently surprises us as it seems unending and continually drifts slowly along.”
Composer/performer/sound artists Richard Reed Parry and Susie Ibarra started their musical journey together after being approached by Splice to create a body of new musical work together as a first-time, long-distance music collaboration. The two decided to expand and explore an idea used in Parry’s prior composition work – using the rhythms of their heart rates and breathing patterns as the basis for rhythmic tempos and musical dynamics, paired with Ibarra’s extended rhythmic and melodic percussion language and her ongoing interpretive practice of Philippine gong music.
OFFAIR Records is a joint venture between Universal Music Canada (UMC) and Versus Creative globally distributed by UMC and Virgin Music Label + Artist Services. With a community of established artists exploring beyond their familiar sonic territories, OFFAIR’s series of releases will bring instrumental and experimental soundtracks to listener-specific environments, mental spaces and shared universal moments. The mission of OFFAIR co-founders Rishi Shah and Nate Auerbach is to create deeper experiences through music. OFFAIR is building a brand, community, and distribution system together with their partners at UMC and Virgin Music to drive intentional listening, supported by special events, partnerships and more.
Tracklisting
1. Field I: After C
2. Field II: Slow Drift
3. Field III: Even
4. Field IV: Gong
5. Field V: Sarunay Shifting
6. Field V: Sarunay Shifting
7. Field VII: Overtone Heartbeats
8. Field VIII: Hands
9. Field IX: Simple Breath
