Catharine Cary – AIR CAKE and other summery occupations

Here’s a fiercely original and jubilantly unusual “children’s” album. During the Pandemic, New Yorker Cary wanted to keep in touch with her nephew, despite the confinements. She started calling him and telling him crazy stories to make him laugh. It was while talking to Ayelet Rose Gotlieb, of Montreal label Orchard of Pomegranates, that the latter instilled in her the idea of adding music to these nonsensical (yet highly symbolic) tales. The result is a psychotronic proposition of absurd adventures set against a backdrop of free improvised music. Add to this Cary’s style of narration, a voice that slams, hits, whispers, pitches and sails to the whim of emotional waves, and you have a jewel of avant-garde youth art, equally appreciated by adults, music lovers, daring parents and, of course, their kids! Cary is accompanied by Eric Lewis on bass clarinet, cornet, percussion and various toys, and Ivan Bamford on drums, percussion and other gadgets, both some of the finest free improvisers ont the Montreal scene. Hang on to your hat, because this journey into Catharine Cary’s imaginary world has all the makings of Alice’s Wonderland! Naked elephants at the beach, babies born from the union of a clam and a baseball mitty, a squirrel with varnished nails and a fabulous cake made of air – all this and infinitely more delightful stories await you and your children (or nephews, nieces, cousins, …). In a parallel world of the Multiverse more audacious than our own, these stories would already have been turned into a psychedelic film by Disney…

The album is in English, but Catharine Cary, who speaks perfect French, also tells them in the language of Molière. Might we suggest that she do a Franco version one day?