28.06.2025
Music
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Andrew Staniland - Laws Of Nature

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Andrew Staniland - Laws Of Nature

With Artifcial Intelligence insinuating itself on every artistic feld, recently there has been a certain wariness that has crystallized around technological advancements in the arts. However the forthcoming recording from acclaimed Canadian composerAndrew Staniland,The Laws of Natureoffers a refreshing and contrasting deployment of new innovations—one that emphasizes rather than approximates humanity. Under the auspices of MEARL (the Memorial ElectroAcoustic Research Lab at Memorial University), Staniland has been working on the digital instrument JADE for the good part of a decade. This versatile tool expands upon conventional tactile means of performing music, employing sensors that measure environmental traits such as humidity, temperature and elevation as well as ones that can read brain waves in real time. On The Laws of Nature, it's JADE's latter capability that is showcased over the course of the twelve tracks of nimble, radiant electronica.

These pieces were not only the culmination of Staniland's explorations with JADE, they were also the result of a commission from Kittiwake Dance Theatre in St. John's, Newfoundland, where Staniland resides. "We began with improvisation workshops where the dancers would individually wear [an] EEG headband and experiment with movement while I sonifed their brain waves in real time," he reveals of the process. "These explorations were recorded in MIDI and audio, and in turn were used as the main musical building blocks for the series of six Dancer Portraits. These miniatures are self-contained and unique, preserving the essence of each dancer’s improvisations." The titular suite, meanwhile, is more involved compositionally, molding the raw material from the portrait series into six interwoven movements.

While this collection clearly demonstrates Staniland's technical prowess, it's equally illustrative of his eclectic compositional language. These selections are delightfully diffcult to classify, sitting somewhere between the soft lushness of ambient music and the sonic choreography of the post-musique concrète lineage. They also refect his extensive background crafting works for ensembles of various sizes; one hears this in the streamlined orchestration and also the cunning nuance he brings to the sampled and synthesized instrumental sonorities he sometimes employs. Apart from the fnal cut (which only barely crosses this threshold) each piece sits under fve minutes. This brevity, coupled with the crisp focus and self-contained soundworld of each piece, imbues the album withmomentum, making it a warm, inviting, and often rather organic listen. Yet while its surface may be alluring, the works are far too dynamic and detailed to waft into the background, especially when digested via the immersive Dolby Atmos platform, as intended. This is rich and engaging music that balances intellect and elegance on numerous levels simultaneously.

Over the course of the past twenty years, composerAndrew Staniland has emerged as one of Canada’s most important and innovative musical voices. Once described by the New Yorker's Alex Ross as “alternately beautiful and terrifying,” his varied output is performed and broadcast internationally.

Staniland's important accoladesinclude three JUNO nominations, several East Coast Music Awards, the 2016 Terra Nova Young Innovators Award, the National Grand Prize winner of EVOLUTION (presented in 2009 by CBC Radio 2/Espace Musique and The Banff Centre), and the 2004 Karen Keiser Prize in Canadian Music. He was also recognized by election to the Inaugural Cohort of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists Royal Society of Canada.

Staniland served as Affliate Composer to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (2006-09) and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (2002–04) and has also been in residence at the Centre du Creation Musicale Iannis Xenakis (Paris, 2005). Recent commissioners and collaborators include Germany’s Flex Ensemble, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, American poet and activist Jessica Care Moore, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. He also performs as a guitarist and with an assortment of electronic implements.

Staniland's music has been released on a number of important imprints for classical and contemporary music such as Centrediscs, Redshift, Naxos, and Analekta. He has also scored a Staniland is currently a professor at Memorial University in St John’s Newfoundland, where he founded MEARL (Memorial ElectroAcoustic Research Lab). At MEARL, he leads a cross-disciplinary research team that has produced the innovative JADE and Mune digital instruments.

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