Landscape: Under the Surface in Guadeloupe
New song out now! And new video! I travel with a mini studio and so when I tagged along with Michel and one of Alain Bédard’s groups on a tour in Guadeloupe I brought my gear. When the band was out at night I considered the spirit of place and listened. As it turned out, the evenings were crazy noisy with the beautiful sounds of the lesser Antillean coqui or whistling frogs. I recorded them and sang along and eventually morphed our songs together with some Ableton trickery.
Under the Surface in Guadeloupe is the resulting track. The poem considers how people can arrive in beautiful places wound up so tight that it is hard for them to let the waves and water wash away their anxieties and regrets. How to convince them to live in the moment and celebrate the whistling music flowing in the tropical breeze? Lying on the beach, gazing at the ever-changing clouds, one can feel the density of stories from the sea and the history of the place. This is what I set out to convey, with the help of my wee friends.
Perhaps we hope the mental health issues of others can be fixed with a few kind gestures, ignoring the depths of complexity involved, and we feel guilty for our failures. Time to take a deep breath and let go. Nature can be so healing.