Colin Stetson

Colin Stetson was born and raised in Ann Arbor, spent a decade in San Francisco and Brooklyn honing his formidable talents as a horn player, eventually settling in Montreal in 2007. Over the years he has worked extensively live and in studio with a wide range of bands and musicians including Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, TV On The Radio, Feist, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Bill Laswell, Evan Parker, The Chemical Brothers, Animal Collective, Hamid Drake, LCD Soundsystem, The National, Angelique Kidjo, Fink, and David Gilmore. Meanwhile he has developed an utterly unique voice as a soloist, principally on saxophones and clarinets, his intense technical prowess matched by his exhilarating and emotionally gripping skills as a songwriter. Stetson’ s astounding physical engagement with his instruments (chiefly bass and alto saxophones) produces emotionally rich and polyphonic compositions that transcend expectations of what solo horn playing can sound like. Stetson is equally at home in the avant jazz tradition of players who have pushed the boundaries of the instrument through circular breathing, embouchure, etc. (i.e. Evan Parker, Mats Gustafsson) and at the nexus of noise/drone/minimalist music that encompasses genres like dark metal, post-rock and contemporary electronics (i.e. Tim Hecker, Ben Frost – both of whom have mixed or remixed Stetson recordings).

In 2008 Aagoo records released Colin’ s debut, the first in his New History Warfare album cycle. ‘ New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges’ arrived via Constellation in Spring 2011. The album met with universal acclaim from critics across a spectrum of jazz and indie rock/pop cultural spheres: “pure revelation” according to All About Jazz, the album was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and landed on year-end lists at Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes, SPIN and the Village Voice. His frequent appearances on stages at SXSW, All Tomorrow’ s Parties, and countless stops on the international jazz festival circuit cemented his reputation as a versatile and virtuosic player while bringing his solo work to a broad international audience. April 2013 saw the release of ‘ New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See MoreLight via Constellation, completing the conceptual and narrative arc of the series and constituting a definitive realization of his unparalleled musicianship and stunning skill as a composer. It has been received with exemplary recognition and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. April of 2015 saw the release of the first recording of Colin’ s duo project with long-time collaborator Sarah Neufeld. ‘ Never were the way she was’ charts an expansive sonic trajectory with a multiplicity of structures and voicings that belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The resulting musical chronicle powerfully establishes its own spatial and temporal horizon; Stetson and Neufeld offer up an impressively immersive integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture. ‘ Never were the way she was’ is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than its parts.

Most recently, in a departure from his cultivated solo aesthetic, came SORROW: a reimagining of Gorecki’ s 3rd Symphony; Stetson’ s first major release as a band leader and the flagship album out on his record label, 52Hz (a collaboration with Kartel Music Group of the UK). 2017 will see the release of several new works, including an offering from EX EYE (w/Greg Fox, Shahzad Ismaily, and Toby Summerfield) and his latest solo album, “All This I Do For Glory”.