Elisa Thorn’s HUE with Laura Swankey
The Other Side: Live at Afterlife
Elisa Thorn (Vancouver, BC) is a harpist known best for her use of electronic effects and unconventional uses of the harp. Using elements of pop, jazz, experimental and new music, her sound moves between contemplative, phrenic, and emotive spaces. Her music has been featured in the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Suoni Il Per Popolo Festival (Montreal), Detroit Free Arts Festival, TONE Fest, Coetani Festival for Experimental Flamenco (Greece). An avid band leader and collaborator, her projects include Elisa Thorn’s HUE, The Giving Shapes and Gentle Party, whose debut release, Jouska, was longer-listed for the 2017 Polaris Prize.
Elisa Thorn’s HUE is a trio from Vancouver featuring James Meger on bass and Justin Devries on drums. With the generous support of Canada Council of the Arts and Creative BC, HUE will be releasing a live video EP, The Other Side: Live at Afterlife, featuring Toronto vocalist Laura Swankey, as a companion to their recent instrumental studio album, Flowers For Your Heart (released May 2019).
This collaboration with Swankey, who is known for her versatility, creativity, and unique command over live vocal processing, aims to recontextualize the abstractness of HUE’s instrumental music, and to build a bridge between live performance and studio recording at a time when the two can be so far apart.
Combining influences of post-rock, jazz, and indie music, HUE’s new music explores how not to compromise sensitivity with boldness, or aesthetic beauty with curiosity. It aims to shed superfluities of both the avant-gard and classical virtuosity and with two objectives in mind: honesty and accessibility.
Photos by Sewari Campillo