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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Double compact disc of Leslie Ting's "What Brings You In." Featuring both the stereo and binaural versions of the album.
Includes unlimited streaming of What Brings You In
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Limited Edition "What Brings You In" Black Box. 3D printed cube with braille writing and containing a QR code to download the album in stereo and binaural versions.
There's very little about violinist and interdisciplinary artist Leslie Ting's debut album What Brings You In that is conventional, and much of that has to do with the fact that the project is so much more than just a record. Though the Toronto-based Ting is very much rooted in musical expression, much of her creative output thus far has situated her playing within a larger context that draws upon elements of theatre, installation, and her experience from her former career as a practicing optometrist. Ting's breakthrough work, Speculation, threaded performances of John Cage and Beethoven through a monologue and captivating projections, all of which served to tell her story of witnessing her own mother's loss of vision and eventual (and sudden) passing. The piece garnered multiple award nominations, including the Pauline McGibbon Award for Emerging Theatre Director (2021).
What Brings You In also broaches deeply personal territory: therapy, but is more oblique and ambitious than its predecessor. Here, Ting enlists various collaborators to bridge a remarkable range of different worlds. Using interview research and personal experiences with talk therapy, hypnotherapy, dreamwork, sandplay, somatics, and reiki, Ting operates both as a performer and in a directorial capacity. The resultant work is unclassifable yet clearly sound-driven, grappling with questions of selfhood via the abstract discourse of music. It's an ever-evolving project that has already been mounted as a live theatrical event, a web-based installation, and a gallery show. In its present incarnation as an audio recording, its program is presented both in stereo and as a binaural recording, the three- dimensional headphone choreography of the latter serving to map the interior worlds of its thematic content.
Starting out with two selections from Linda Catlin Smith's beloved violin and percussion piece Dirt Road, Ting quickly veers away from the pre-composed, plunging into a spontaneous exchange with brilliant Torontonian percussionist Germaine Liu on "What Is The Most Yourself You Can Be (With Another)?" A glowing review in Exclaim! once praised Liu's "unique propensity for fnding music in the most seemingly mundane objects and events" and on the album's third track, "Sandplay" listeners hear this particular aptitude come to fore as she performs in (and on) an amplifed sandbox, referencing the practice of sandplay therapy. She's joined by the inimitable Matt Smith on electronics, who has worked as a producer to Lido Pimienta on her GRAMMY-nominated Miss Colombia and remixer for Caribou while also crafting his own work under the Prince Nifty moniker. Smith was also the sonic architect of the rich binaural environments that the second disc of album inhabits.
Enveloping electronic sound also plays an important role on the two fnal pieces, both of which were commissioned expressly for What Brings You In. In the album's liner notes, the composers of said pieces, reveal the extent to which Ting's over-arching concept interfaced with their creative process. "Beholding", by acclaimed composer Rose Bolton is the frst of the two works and metaphorically traces Bolton's own internal transformation via the therapeutic process. Bolton's release on Important Records' Cassauna imprint called was touted by the Quietus as "softly addictive, suspending time like staring out over the fickering city lights at night” and her masterful command of evocative atmospheric is equally palpable here.
Julia Mermelstein's "Folds in Crossings" deploys electronics in an almost orchestral manner, sometimes imparting the solo violin with an otherworldly glow, other times swallowing it an oceanic mass of sound. Though it's not without its moments of turbulence the work unfolds a dreamy underlying majesty, ultimately providing a restful conclusion to the varied journey of the album.
Leslie Ting's unusual career trajectory has undoubtedly informed the path she has taken artistically. After spending three years working as a licensed optometrist, she became tenured principal chair violinist in the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestral from 2013-16. It was during that period that she began developing Speculation, which would in turn provide her with newfound visibility in other realms. The piece was ultimately presented live at The Music Gallery in conjunction with the podcast Pondercast (2018); Ottawa Chamberfest (2018) OpenSenses Festival (London, UK, 2017); at Kitchener's Registry Theatre in association with the Open Ears Festival & MT Space Theatre (2014) as well as online in 2021 through Theatre Passe Muraille in partnership with NUMUS Concerts and the Festival of Live Digital Art.
Recent collaborations have included Diane Borsato’s Your Temper, My Weather at the National Arts Centre SPHERE Festival (Ottawa), performing in the inaugural season of improvisation web-series, Understory (brainchild of noted improvisers Parmela Attariwala, Nicole Rampersaud, and Germaine Liu), contributing to the experimental publication Caddisfy Project (NYC) and creating a video étude for Race Cards (in Two Acts), a co-production by Prime Mover Theatre Company and Selina Thompson LTD (UK) and the composition Describe Yourself for violin, voice and Zoom, which was commissioned by fellow violinist Christopher Whitley and served as the title track for his recent release on Redshift Records.
-Nick Storring
credits
released March 1, 2024
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Leslie Ting: violin, concept, co-producer
Germaine Liu: percussion (1,2), amplified sandbox (3)
Matt Smith: additional electronics (3), co-producer
Rose Bolton: electronics (4)
Julia Mermelstein: electronics (5)
Recorded at Canterbury Music Company, Toronto
Mixed by Matt Smith
Mastered by Fedge
Artwork by Stephanie Kuse
Photography by Melissa Sung
supported by 5 fans who also own “What Brings You In”
As a band, they were really doing something strange at the time by making music that sounded so resolutely like it came from the bedroom of a solo producer. "Vocals" are just snatches of floating sound, drums are often electronic... all the instruments sound electronic. They were clearly inspired by dub (who isn't) and started with stripped-down fragments, but then kept whittling down from there. Mood-wise they're bleak yet beautiful, like enjoying a solo walk in an industrial landscape. Jascha Narveson
This collaborative album considers the notion of time, with each of its electroacoustic tracks unfurling at a measured pace. Bandcamp New & Notable May 1, 2023
Recorded after overcoming serious physical issues, joy and und radiate from every note of trumpeter Steph Richard's incredible new LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 23, 2024
