Release date: 28 April 2026 at atelierjaku.bandcamp.com
CD 1 Descants 1 (2020)
Performed by Ko Ishikawa (shō and u)
Performed by Ko Ishikawa (shō and u)
CD 2 Descants 2 (2020) and Descants 4 (2021)
Descants 2 performed by Yuta (treble)
Descants 4 performed by Tomoko Akasaka (viola)
Descants 2 performed by Yuta (treble)
Descants 4 performed by Tomoko Akasaka (viola)
CD 3 Descants 3: Hayama Shoreline (2021)
Performed by Daryl Jamieson (objects)
Performed by Daryl Jamieson (objects)
CD 4 Descants 5 (2021)
Performed by Shōzan Hasegawa (shakuhachi)
Performed by Shōzan Hasegawa (shakuhachi)
All tracks composed and recorded by Daryl Jamieson
CD design by Setsuami
Packaging by Niijima Tatsuhiko
Descants is a series of pieces for solo instruments in natural environments. ‘Natural’, in my meaning, includes human-made environments, eschewing any artificial distinction between humans and the rest of the environment. The composed music is intended to become a part of the natural soundscape, not foregrounded or separated from the natural sounds around it.
In the five pieces which make up the Descants series I aimed to explore the interconnectedness of human and non-human sound beyond the use of field recordings in a concert hall or art gallery. The Covid restrictions of 2020 pushed me to reimagine how to compose music so that it functions as a practice of inter-being (broadly defined) communication rather than a one-way pronouncement from a “composer”.
Each piece in the series also is inspired to greater or lesser extents mediaeval Japanese concepts of time and rhythm, place, and the Buddhahood of nonhumans. All of these recordings make use of a variety of microphones, as well as unconventional microphone placement, to decentre the composed, scored music and introduce a sense of uncanniness into the recordings. They are intended to be non-fictional field recordings of unique instances of sharing sound among the various human and non-human interpreters.
———Daryl Jamieson