Colin Stetson: All This I Do for Glory

Richard Gehr on September 25, 2017

Indie-rock sax man Colin Stetson sounds like he arrived directly from the land of the ice and snow on All This I Do for Glory. Following a reinterpretation of Polish composer Henryk Górecki’s “Symphony No. 3” (his so-called “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”), Stetson returns to solo mode, submitting an ancient bass saxophone to circular breathing and extensive miking (extending to his own body). Rolling repetitive tones whistle through the wind as pancake pads clatter against metal tubing. It’s a “cruel, beautiful, infinitely sad sound,” wrote Josef Skvorecky in his 1994 novella The Bass Saxophone, and Stetson makes it sound eerily close and personal.

Artist: Colin Stetson
Album: All This I Do for Glory
Label: 52Hz