{"title":"Esmerine","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEsmerine is a musical ensemble formed by Bruce Cawdron, Beckie Foon, Brian Sanderson, and Philippe Charbonneau. Originally a duet consisting of Cawdron and Foon, Esmerine released their first album outside of their involvement with \"Godspeed You! Black Emperor,\" \"A Silver Mt. Zion,\" and \"Set Fire To Flames.\" Unlike their previous projects, Esmerine's music focuses on drums, melodic percussion, and cello rather than guitars.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe band expanded its lineup for their third album in 2011 with the addition of Sarah Page and Andrew Barr. However, as Page and Barr became more involved with Barr Brothers duties, Esmerine solidified its touring lineup as a quartet with Jamie Thompson and Brian Sanderson for their fourth album in 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith influences from Rachels and Clogs among others, Esmerine creates captivating compositions that showcase the unique combination of marimba, drums, melodic percussion, cello, violin, and contrabass. Their mesmerizing sound has garnered them comparisons to artists such as Hangedup,Hrsta,Silver Mt. Zion,Fly Pan Am,Efrim Manuel Menuck,and Do Make Say Think.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"la-lechuza","title":"La Lechuza","description":"\u003cp\u003ecd comes in a custom gatefold jacket printed on reverse 100% recycled orford paperboard in full colour. esmerine enters its second decade with an expanded line-up and a new album - the band's first in six years. the band were co-founded ten years ago by percussionist bruce cawdron (godspeed you! black emperor) and cellist beckie foon (thee silver mt zion). while esmerine has always forged instrumental songs of high emotive and narrative power, on 'la lechuza' there is truly a spirit at work, and the group has succeeded in making an album that is both a eulogy to lhasa and testament to the newfound creative relationships the she helped bring forth. as with previous esmerine albums, 'la lechuza' comprises predominantly instrumental music; the conjunction of cawdron's mallet playing (marimbas, glockenspiels) and foon's lyrical cello lines continues to anchor much of the record. page's harp works in lovely counterpoint to the rhythmic and melodic patterns of the mallet instruments, and at times establishes the song foundation in its own right, most notably on 'last waltz', where sarah also sings. andrew barr's additional percussion work and sensibility allowed the group to record more of the album live, in real time and with renewed fluidity. stunning instrumental opener 'a dog river' includes guest playing by colin stetson and sarah neufeld (arcade fire, belle orchestre), who also contribute to 'little streams make big rivers' on side 2.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50491014250827,"sku":"338826","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6215929d-2fc9-408c-81c8-19b41fc4d8ce_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727680544"},{"product_id":"lost-voices","title":"Lost Voices","description":"\u003cp\u003eMontreal chamber rock ensemble Esmerine return with the new full-length album 'Lost Voices', the most dynamic and incendiary record of the group's career, following its highly-acclaimed and Juno award-winning 2013 release Dalmak. Led by co-founders Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) on various mallet instruments and Rebecca Foon (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Saltland) on cello, Esmerine also includes drummer\/percussionist Jamie Thompson (The Unicorns, Islands, Little Scream) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson. The album features several tracks that are hands down among the band's most rocking, making newfound use of electric guitars (courtesy a variety of guest players) alongside the group's nucleus of marimba, strings and percussion. Esmerine also welcomes bassist Jeremi Roy (who began touring with the group in 2013) as an official member; his contrabass work adds potent low-end to the heavier jams on the new album. Lost Voices is equally notable for the appearance of Godspeed\/Mt. Zion violinist Sophie Trudeau as a featured guest; her intense, incomparable string sounds\/styles elevate the potency of the record's most soaring and high-octane pieces, particularly on opener \"The Neighbourhoods Rise\", \"19\/14\" and \"Hakanting\". Lost Voices can fairly be called Esmerine's \"rock\" album, expanding upon the band's celebrated prowess at deploying structure and dynamic, balancing melodic expression against methodical restraint through a diversity of stylistic touchstones while allowing for explosive crescendos of exuberant density and maximalism that most notably distinguishes this record from previous work. Lost Voices is a deeply satisfying and evocative journey and another brilliant iteration of Esmerine's distinctive instrumental chamber rock; cerebral and visceral, controlled and volatile, and wholly cinematic in scope throughout.  LP - Vinyl is 180 Gram audiophile pressing includes art print poster and download coupon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Constellation","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50493502259531,"sku":"393775","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50493503504715,"sku":"393774","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/07b0d124-80c4-46a2-bbba-8708019f154b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727698455"},{"product_id":"mechanics-of-dominion","title":"Mechanics Of Dominion","description":"\u003cp\u003eEsmerine is the modern chamber ensemble co-founded by cellist Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Silver Mt Zion) and percussionist Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor). Following their previous album Lost Voices (2016 Juno nominee for Instrumental Album and winner for Album Packaging), Esmerine embarked on a soundtrack commission for an NFB documentary about independent journalism in the Middle East. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMechanics Of Dominion is Esmerine's most dynamic and narratively-informed work, tracing an arc through Neo-Classical, Minimalist, Modern Contemporary, Folk, Baroque, Jazz and Rock idioms to invoke lamentation, meditation, resolve, resistance and hope. It is a requiem for our intractably complex and suffering planet and a paean to the imperative wisdom of indigenous ethics. Stylistically, the album brings mallet instruments to the fore: marimba, glockenspiel and piano are a prominent through-line on the album's diverse tracks. Multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson's stately melodic lines on horns and acoustic strings also provide formidable elements in the ceremonious lyricism and keening vitality of this song cycle. Montreal visual artist Jean-Sebastien Denis provides brilliant abstract compositions for the album's deluxe artwork and packaging.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP- 180 Gram audiophile vinyl, thick jacket with a set of five 12\"x12\" art prints and Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Constellation","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50496092307787,"sku":"1018529","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50496094699851,"sku":"1018528","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/318b426a-655b-487c-8566-a4b66ff67c28_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727716963"},{"product_id":"everything-was-forever-until-it-was-no-more","title":"Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More","description":"\u003cp\u003eEsmerine presents \u003ci\u003eEverything Was Forever Until It Was No More\u003c\/i\u003e, its first album in five years, following a celebrated run of Juno Award winning and nominated records throughout the preceding decade. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFounded by ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron and cellist Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Silver Mt Zion, Set Fire To Flames), the acclaimed instrumental music ensemble and has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Esmerine conjures a distinctive and immediately identifiable sound that consistently defies the trappings of “fusion”, forging emotive cinematic soundtracks under the overriding sonic sensibilities of post-punk grit, Wall-of-Sound, drone and dark ambient. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecorded by longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), the new album manifestly carries on in this fine tradition. \u003ci\u003eEverything Was Forever Until It Was No More\u003c\/i\u003e completes Esmerine’s “Anthropocene” triptych: a series of album-length meditations that began in 2015. The album title itself has minor meme status in eco-artistic circles, appropriated from its original context Alex Yurchak’s 2005 book about the collapse of Soviet Russia by several exhibitions and works interrogating artistic production in the age of environmental crisis. (Foon is also well-known for her climate activism as co-founder of Pathway To Paris.) The album grapples with existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and satiation, scarcity and abundance; it is one of Esmerine’s most restrained and wistful works. Instrumental densities ebb and flow, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around the saturnine gravitational force of a darkly glowing sonic center. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEverything Was Forever Until It Was No More\u003c\/i\u003e is like a somber forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier’s Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Esmerine planted these compositional seeds before pandemic rooted everyone in place, under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and a 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon in France. Lasek then began documenting the band between lockdowns in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment at the rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, culminating in final sessions at Foon’s converted barn in summer\/fall 2021, notably with extensive use of the barn’s resonant acoustic piano. Brian Sanderson appears on his fourth Esmerine album since joining in 2012, continuing to expand the ensemble’s ethnomusicological sensibility and melodic sound palette with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, and brass horns of all sorts. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEverything Was Forever…\u003c\/i\u003e also signals the full integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau, who joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic and plays throughout the new album, along with sound design contributions via synth, tape echo and other processing. \u003ci\u003eEverything Was Forever Until It Was No More\u003c\/i\u003e features the pandemic collage artwork of Maciek Sczcerbowksi, in a second Esmerine album art collaboration following their Juno award for Album Package of the Year for Lost Voices in 2015.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Constellation","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50503740719435,"sku":"1162087","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50503740883275,"sku":"1162088","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/5e07d3a2-2e6d-4a4e-90d1-0416946f1142_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727798444"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_fc7c1ff0_thumbnail_4096_d5e9d221-57c4-4dd1-80d1-0508ba9d9f1e.jpg?v=1727680527","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/esmerine.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}