The much-respected Grand Rapids singer-songwriter’s listening party for ‘Saffron,’ will also include a documentary screening, a Q&A session and short performances. The details at Local Spins.
Slowing Down the Brain to Absorb an Important Work of Art: Cameron Blake’s mission tonight. (Photo/Chelsea Whitaker)
Cameron Blake sits at a sidewalk table outside Wealthy Street in Grand Rapids while leaves dance in the breeze along the concrete.
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His hair swirls into perfect grey spirals above a pair of round spectacles that reflect a contemplative gaze. The coffee in his hand is dark with steam rolling over the brim of a ceramic mug.
Blake, a longstanding Grand Rapids songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, is set to release his new album, “Saffron,” with a listening party at Wealthy Street Theatre tonight (Thursday, Oct. 2).
The evening includes a high-fidelity listen through of the entire record, a screening of a brief documentary about the making of the record, a music video premiere, as well as a Q&A with Blake and producer Josh Kaufman. The night will also feature two short performances by Blake who will be accompanied by bassist Ian Thompson.
Doors open at 6 p.m. with music starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20. A digital download of “Saffron” is also included with the purchase of a ticket, available online here.
“The idea was how can we create an event and a space where people can literally slow their brains down enough to listen to an entire album together? The way you do at home with vinyl. You sit in a chair for 20 minutes and just listen, then get up and get a drink, then sit back down and listen to Side B.
The New Album: ‘Saffron’ (Photo/Loren Johnson and Chelsea Whitaker)
“It was important to us with this album that we release it in a way that reflects the amount of care and attention we put into making it. We want it to be heard in its entirety for the message to get across. The location was important. Wealthy Theatre is the perfect place to dim the lights and hear the music,” Blake says.
“So I’m calling this an anti-AI event because it’s these sorts of experiences that are the antithesis of the attention economy. It requires more of us to sit in a room and experience a work of art together over an extended period of time when we are used to 30 second clips and easy dopamine hits. I hope to see more events that ask us to take the time to be human, which does require effort.”
While making “Saffron,” Blake opted to enter the studio with little more than a vision and influences. He studied the rhythms of North Africa, as well as free jazz, including the works of John Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Albert Ayler and Alice Coltrane. Blake notes the album “Ascension” by Coltrane was highly influential with its “big band sound that breaks open.”
The recording process was free flowing and spontaneous. Blake recruited a cast of top-tier musicians, put them all in the same room at Local Legend Recording in Grand Rapids, and over the course of two days, guided the process while letting the songs shape themselves in the moment.
“I went into the studio with very little music written at all. I did have a clear idea of how I wanted the music to make the listener feel. I wrote words that I felt sounded musical, I designed the instrumentation and then recruited the best improvisers I knew, musicians that could take these lyrics and make something really fly,” Blake says.
Featured musicians on “Saffron” include Jarad Selner on saxophone (aka, Saxsquatch), Jill Collier on cello, Ian Thompson on bass, Dutcher Snedeker on Hammond B3 organ and piano, David Ward on drums, Brad Fritcher on trumpet, Andrew Szumowski on percussion and pedal steel guitar, Avalon Cutts-Jones on vocals and Shelby Leigh on vocals. The album was produced and engineered by Josh Kaufman at Local Legend.
“So you have this strange orchestra that ranges from the bottom of the sonic spectrum to the top. I wanted to create this entire sound world underneath me and then if a melody would come in the moment I’d sing it, if it was spoken word I was speaking it, if a full tune came out of it, we would let it happen,” Blake says.
The results of those two days hunkered inside the studio are brought to vibrant life on the recording. From its opening measures until its closing seconds, “Saffron” is a spectacle. An entrancing circus of sound that shatters the wall, leaps through the speakers and shakes the listener awake. Blake’s voice is expressive, dynamic and theatrical as he weaves gorgeous melodies with visceral spoken word passages. The album in its current format is divided into two twenty minute movements: the first half is titled after Greek philosopher “Diogenes,” while the second half bears the name “Diaspora.”
“If the album has a theme, it’s the idea that we live in the midst of societal insanity, political insanity, cultural insanity. We’re living in such a wild world where down seems to be up and up is down, and yet there are these poets and artists that enter and actually tell us the truth.
“Yet throughout history, these characters have been labeled as the ‘mad ones’ because they’ve pushed against the status quo. We need to listen to them and what they have to say now more than ever. Just not the ChatGPT version.”
Truth-Telling: Cameron Blake (Photo/Chelsea Whitaker)
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