Catherine Lee: Remote Together
Redshift Records

Many ambient-electronic producers have issued experimental recordings featuring soundscapes, electronic treatments, and field recordings; albums presenting the oboe, oboe d'amore, and English horn in the lead soloist's role are available too, though they're typically found in the classical section. In conjoining the two on Remote Together, Catherine Lee does something few others have done. Best of all, the inherent beauty of her instruments' timbres are maximized by the musicality she brings to even the most experimental setting. Her instruments allow for such natural human expression they can't help but engage no matter how abstract or alien the elements with which they're combined.

Lee elevates these pieces with her explorative sensibility and technical command, and through her efforts the oboe and English horn are able to be seen with fresh ears as instruments that can fit as naturally into an experimental milieu as a classical one. To that end, she's also something of a pioneer, given that many of the pieces on Remote Together are pieces she helped bring into being. Of its six pieces, four were written for her, and one she composed with Juniana Lanning.

The Canadian oboist brings impressive credentials to the endeavour. Lee's performed in classical, contemporary, and free improv contexts and is involved in a number of groups. She's worked with Roscoe Mitchell and also numerous orchestras in the U.S. and Canada. On the academic side, Lee, who earned her doctorate at McGill in Montreal, is currently on faculty at Willamette University, Western Oregon University, and George Fox University. Indicative of her area of musical interests, she also has a certification from the Deep Listening Institute in New York.

Remote Together features material by composers residing in the Pacific Northwest, including Canadian composers Jordan Nobles, Taylor Brook, and Dana Reason. Thoughtfully sequenced, the recording takes on the character of a journey filled with detours into unusual soundworlds where in one moment Lee might engage with a Baroque-inspired melody and grapple with microtonality in another. While the pieces are formally scored, improvisation is present to varying degrees throughout, which makes each performance unique.

Nobles' Nocturne eases the listener into the project with a short setting for solo oboe that effectively showcases the instrument's haunting sonorities, after which the album's general character comes into focus with Reason's Chanson de Fleurs: Eleanor of Aquitaine. For ten minutes, the oboe navigates through an evolving soundfield dense with elements associated with nature (birds calls, insect noises, rustlings) and otherwise (electronic convulsions, piano chords, vocal babble). Scored for oboe d'amore and electronics, Brook's Alluvium explores the notion of “microtonal drift,” such that Lee plays against a tape whose precisely tuned microtonal modulations slowly move the harmony from one tonal centre to another. The piece sounds as described, with micro-shifts in tonality constantly redefining the harmonic centre as the material develops.

Less dense by comparison is Matt Carlson's Chiasmus, which pairs Lee's English horn with synthesizer by the composer. Drawing from the titular literary device whereby a phrase is mirrored (e.g., J.F.K.'s “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”), Chiasmus follows a series of short duo melodies with variations appearing in reverse chronological order. You'll likely remember the piece more, however, for its generally stately character, the refreshing amount of space generated by Carlson's use of silence, and the melodious effect of the two voices sounding together. That the piece also suggests some degree of connection to classical music, however indirect that might be, also adds to it. As its title intimates, Silkys relates to the domestic silk moth and specifically the developmental stages that bring it to its adult form. The collaboration between Lee and Lanning, which pairs the former's oboe with swarming sound manipulations by the latter, makes for a fitting closer, not only for its uncompromising experimental tone but for concepts of metamorphosis and cocooning that have assumed magnified resonance during the pandemic period.

One of the more appealing things about the recording is that while most of the soundscapes against which Lee appears are heavily manipulated and electronic, her instruments appear in their natural form. That allows for maximum tension to emerge in the juxtapositions between the sounds she produces and the accompanying soundfields, while also allowing for the oboe and English horn to be heard in all their natural glory.

June 2021