Doell, Jason - becoming in shadows ~ of being touched |

It's hard to parse exactly what you're listening to when you immerse yourself in Jason Doell's new recording, Becoming In Shadows ~ Of Being Touched. The old adage about never judging a book by its cover may often hold true but somehow Xuan Ye's beautiful design speaks volumes about both the sonics and structure of this bewildering document by the Toronto-based composer and sound artist. Though the imagery is blatantly computer-generated, it's rife with references to vegetation, bones, water, and buildings. Similarly, one of the most beguiling aspects of Doell's music here is the friction that builds up between its organic surface and the elusive, unruly quality that permeates just about everything else. Piano is audibly the album's lone instrument, but even with that anchor of familiarity, one still finds themselves confronted with something disorienting, but utterly captivating—tangled layers, meandering forms, subtle idiosyncratic manipulations. Doell's performance brims with improvisatory warmth and bears the unmistakable physicality of a human interacting with an instrument however there's another far less comprehensible force at play—a mystifying undertow that pulls the ear toward murky sonic depths. The process that birthed this album—his vinyl debut—unquestionably plays a key role in establishing the feverish liminal space it inhabits. While in a winter residency at the Banff Centre, Doell began each day limbering up with some freeform playing at the piano that had been provided to him.