Canadian composer and violinist Saraj Neufeld, long-time member of Arcade Fire and founding member of Bell Orchestre, has announced the release of her third solo album. Detritus will be out on May 14th via One Little Independent Records. According to the press release, it confronts anguish with beauty, turmoil with grace, gliding through the present like a dancer mid-motion, reaching through space ’til she’s caught.
She explains “I was inspired by both a sense of interior aloneness, and a sense of deep intimacy. Within both, a profound questioning of identity and intention, and ultimately, a grieving over one’s former sense of self. The stories we’ve told ourselves that we can no longer believe. Nestled within deep layers of comfort, familiarity, and solace, I’m able to repeat myself again and again, never learning, never looking back. Simultaneously becoming wiser and more ignorant as the years wind on, beauty and grace exist even here, in this rift.”
We already shared “Stories” and “With Love and Blindness“; “The Top” is a new excerpt which comes with the official video directed by Kaveh Nabatian.
The video was shot at The Boiler in Brooklyn while Sarah was 8 months pregnant, by Bell Orchestre bandmate and award-winning film maker Kaveh Nabatian (who’s shot films for Arcade Fire, The Barr Brothers, Kahlil Joseph, Leif Vollebekk, Clara Furey, Half Moon Run, and Socalled).
Sarah tells us that “during the Covid era build up to the release of Detritus, it felt necessary to create a performance video. It’s been a lonely year, and a year without performing live or having much connection with collaborators and bandmates. I needed to capture the essence of what I do, what drives me as a musician, and communicate that. As much a way of engaging with myself as with my listeners: Here we are, still breathing and playing and listening to music.
The Top is an emblem of my soloistic performance and writing style. The piece came together one melodic puzzle fragment at a time, written on my instrument while playing, repeating phrases over until fluid and calling toward the next unfolding passage. Performing The Top is at once trance like and difficult; one off-putting thought easily throws the whole thing off the rails. It was the first brick in the album. The only piece without drums or other instrumentation, it’s just me, centered in the whirlwind of my own creation. The Top represents change, and the struggle in making peace with oneself.
Shooting the video in January with my long time (Bell Orchestre) bandmate and filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian, there was another element overwhelmingly present. I was nearly 8 months pregnant. I didn’t want to anchor the piece in that reality too much, because that’s not where the music came from. But in the connectedness and continuation of all things, it made sense for me to put myself out there in that big life moment. I’m a craver of challenge and intensity, so pulling off a 14 hour day on my feet in heels, in my changed body, dressed in clothing that didn’t hide, and performing one of the most difficult pieces I’ve ever written over and over and over again, felt right, a bit scary, and ultimately very good.
I’ve long held (limiting) beliefs about what becoming a mother would or could “do to me” as an artist. I know I’m not alone in that. This video also represents a manifestation of self that includes multiplicities; artist, performer, striver, mother, mover. A vulnerable human in a moment of massive transition.”
Director Kaveh Nabatian continues; “Tension and release, movement and stillness, the promise of new life in a decrepit industrial space. A pregnant musician’s striking performance transforms from enigmatic to emotional. Starting as a hauntingly lit figure playing music in a cavernous boiler room, we gradually move closer to her, both physically and emotionally, until we are inches from her face, seeing memories and dreams in her mind.”
