A Gradual Awakening

Mychael and I literally began recording this music on January 1st, 1980—the very first day of the new decade. From the outset, we knew we were onto something different, though we weren’t sure exactly where it would lead. Over the next two years, as we both moved from place to place, we recorded whenever we could. Sessions took place in our home studios in Burlington and Dundas, and later at my homestead in Maple Leaf and a secluded log cabin studio in Maynooth. Everything was analog back then. We hauled heavy modular synthesizers, tape decks, and various equipment deep into Ontario’s wilderness. The natural outdoor sounds woven into the album were recorded at my cabin, where I was living off the grid on a 100-acre patch of forest—no overhead electrical lines, just trees and tape decks. To power the studio, we ran long extension cords hundreds of meters through the woods to a generator in the barn. Since portable digital recorders did not yet exist, we carried a 54-pound Studer Revox reel-to-reel deck into the forest to record the soundscape and powered it the same way. Recording in those conditions wasn’t easy, but it was central to how the album came together. A Gradual Awakening grew out of a slow, quiet process, shaped by the places we lived, the tools we had, and a shared instinct to follow the music wherever it led. It was created over time—layer by layer, season by season—and in close connection with our surroundings. – Tim Clément