Superior: Journeys on an Inland Sea
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This music had its beginnings in an unusual and intriguing request. In 1992 I was contacted by Gary and Joanie McGuffin, adventurers and naturalists who had chronicled their incredible 6000 mile odyssey across Canada by canoe in their book Where Rivers Run. They were beginning work on another book, Superior: Journeys on an Inland Sea, which tells, in words and photographs, of their three month circumnavigation of Lake Superior by canoe, kayak and cross-country skis. But they wanted to be able to offer the reader more than a purely visual experience. They felt that, by offering a companion piece of music on CD or cassette, which the reader could perhaps enjoy while reading the book and viewing the photographs, or by itself, they could bring to the reader a much richer and more compelling experience of the magic, grandeur and awesome beauty of the Lake and its environment. Having heard and liked a piece of music I had done earlier (The Creation Cycle, in fact) they approached me to provide the music, and intrigued by the idea, I accepted. This decision was to prove much more profound and affecting than I first thought. Since that time, Gary and Joanie have become close and valued friends; more than that, they have introduced me to a place that I have come to love and respect, for its uniqueness, its power, its unspoilt wildness, and its incredible beauty. |
During the writing phase of this music, I actually spent quite a bit of time up on the Lake, with Gary and Joanie, and also with some mutual friends, Ruth Fletcher and Ward Conway, who live in a beautiful log cabin perched on the edge of a rocky promontory overlooking Montreal River Harbour, about 90 miles north of Sault Ste Marie (Ruth did the spoken-word tracks on the CD, which were co-written by Ruth, Ward and myself.) A lot of what I experienced during that time made its way into the music. One visit to Ruth and Ward's cabin (after a hair-raising drive up Highway 17 at about 10 PM in pitch darkness and almost zero visibility) was in the teeth of a classic November gale: 20 to 25 foot waves, howling 80 knot winds, biting cold and lashing rain. After I arrived, Ruth, Ward and I bundled up and stood in the shelter of some pines outside the cabin for a while, watching the waves explode onto the rocks by the moonlight that would occasionally break through the racing clouds. The noise of the surf was as loud as some rock concerts I've been to, and even though we were standing next to one another, we had to yell at the top of our lungs to make ourselves heard. This experience found its way into the track Misshepeshu, which you can listen to on the Music page (see below). |
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I've always held a somewhat proprietary attitude towards my music and the composition and performance of same, being reluctant I guess to relinquish any control of my creative vision (see Dreyam) to anyone else. However in the writing and recording of this music I made a deliberate effort to incorporate other performers, feeling strongly at the time that it should be a communal effort (and consciously trying, through brute force, to break myself of my habit of jealously guarding my work from outside influence), and I eventually brought in a total of eight other performers and writers, all close friends, to participate. |
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They are:
Track List:
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