Montreal-based cellist Rebecca Foon has a long list of credits, including membership in A Silver Mt. Zion and Collin Stetson’s Sorrow orchestra, but for her own recordings she employs the moniker Saltland. The project’s second album finds Foon increasing the solo focus and deepening the avant-chamber-pop resonances as she explores an environmental theme. Featuring contributions from Warren Ellis of The Dirty Three, A Common Truth is out now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through the Constellation label.
In addition to A Silver Mt. Zion and Stetson’s group, Rebecca Foon has played a role in Set Fire to Flames, Fifth of Seven, Esmerine, Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush, and The Mile End Ladies String Auxiliary. Reinforcing the demand for talented cellists, she’s contributed to Patrick Watson’s Just Another Ordinary Day, the self-titled debut by Lesbians on Ecstasy, Hrsta’s Stem Stem in Electro, Black Ox Orkestar’s Nisht Azoy, Vic Chesnutt’s North Star Deserter, Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista and Hello, Voyager, Grant Hart’s Hot Wax, and British Sea Power’s Krankenhaus? and Do You Like Rock Music?
Foon’s own stuff hasn’t taken a backseat. Assisted by her Esmerine cohort Jamie Thompson on miniature percussion, programming and signal processing, Saltland debuted in 2013 with I Thought It Was Us but It Was all of Us. Produced by Mark Lawson and with contributions from Stetson, Mishka Stein of Patrick Watson’s band, Esmerine mates Bruce Cawdron and Sarah Pagé, Arcade Fire’s Sarah Neufeld and Richard Reed Parry, and Little Scream’s Laurel Sprengelmeyer and Jess Robertson, the disc lingered productively between avant-chamber and post-rock sensibilities.
Her new one tweaks the program a bit. A Common Truth was recorded by Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes, who also played guitar on three of the album’s selections. However, its most notable contributor is Warren Ellis, the Nick Cave collaborator and mainstay of The Dirty Three bringing his violin, pump organ, and deftness with loops to four tracks. Other than a backing vocal credit for Ian Ilavsky (who also helped mix the record) everything else was performed by Foon.
This reduces the post-rock aura somewhat as the chamber qualities endure. “To Allow Us All to Breathe” rises slowly with affinities to drone as Foon’s woody cello emerges soon enough. Alongside her is Ellis’ violin, which attains an achy melancholia in its solo passages. Thriving on a balance of tension, structure, and emotion, the piece lacks clutter, the whole serving as an effective prelude to the vocal-centered and decidedly more pop-imbued “Under My Skin.”
Constellation’s promo text mentions dream-pop, but don’t get the wrong idea. Hopefuls in this style are a dime a dozen these days, but Saltland easily avoids breathy cliché through rigorousness and depth of approach. To elaborate, Stetson’s Sorrow orchestra was tasked with reimaging the 3rd symphony of Henryk Gorecki, so her classical chops are solid, though “Under My Skin” utilizes sparseness nodding to minimalism.
Foon having an impressive set of pipes is indisputable, but she’s far more than just a pretty voice. “I Only Wish This for You” is a standout of layering, beginning with bowed drone and quickly adding bolder chamber hues as Foon’s vocal enters next, alternating between directly delivered verses and soaring wordless passages. Then comes Lasek’s rock-edged guitar and patterns of what sounds like spurting synth.
“Light of Mercy” brings the singing back to the fore, but in a considerably denser instrumental milieu than “Under the Skin,” and as enhanced by Ilavsky’s deep-toned echoing backup, darker as well. “Forward Eyes I” shifts into neo-classical mode, Ellis’ quivering violin encircling the hugeness of Foon’s cello swells, and as it unwinds her ability at crafting cinematic soundscapes becomes clear.
She’s accumulated numerous scoring credits in fact, and her ability at conjuring and gradually intensifying mood is showcased in the powerful “Magnolia.” It leads into “This Other Place,” its cyclical bowing combining with vocals that are at first almost Brit-folky, and as the music builds to a climax, increasingly ethereal.
Much of Foon’s time has been devoted to environmental causes, and she’s also focused on climate change here, the title of this album and its penultimate track altering the name of Davis Guggenheim’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth to reflect contemporary realities. But “A Common Truth” is simultaneously a succinct study in Foon’s general strategy with this LP; often edgy, dark and even a little angsty, the tone is never despairing.
Instead, the piece mingles urgency, passion, and danger with guitar slash lending to its rousing finale. And where “To Allow Us All to Breathe” felt like a prelude, “Forward Eyes II” registers as A Common Truth’s coda, its relative tranquility instilling a feeling of hope. With her latest as Saltland, Rebecca Foon attains a rarity that needs to become more frequent, combining social commitment and advanced musical ideas with an admirable level of success.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
