Canadian cellist Julia Kent, now based in NYC, has announced the release of her fourth solo album Asperities (30 October 2015 – Leaf Label). As the name suggests it was an album in response to conflict: internal, personal and global. “The build of pressure and the threat of violent release. Modern guilt. Modern fears.”
“I was thinking about the concept of difficulty. Whether in life or in nature – of conflict, of being troubled. The idea of friction. Also in geology, an asperity is some part of a faultline that doesn’t move which can create an earthquake, which is quite an evocative concept.”
Watch her latest video for Invitation to the Voyage, directed by Carmen Jiménez whose short film Oasis was scored by Julia.
Whilst there is evidence of her recent film score work in the album Leaf draw a focus to the tension and darkness. “A lot of the melodic material is based on semitones,” Julia elaborates. “So in the music there is an inherent sense of dissonance; that things are too close for comfort. More generally, it seems like a particularly dark time in the world right now, and I think that definitely had an influence too.”
The album was recorded, produced and mixed in its entirety by Julia in her New York studio. This method of working lends the record a sense of isolation that carries a powerful resonance in our modern over-connected world. “I really like the autonomy of working alone,” she says. “I feel that I can transmit something emotionally that I might not be able to if there were someone else involved.”
Pre-Order the album via Bandcamp