Oliver Coates

John Luther Adams Canticles of the Sky / Three High Places

— Each purchase includes a multi-format download redeemable via Bandcamp.

Notes
Tracklist
Notes

CAT #: RVNGNL48
May 8, 2019

Following a limited vinyl edition in 2018, Oliver Coates’ arrangement of Pulitzer Prize-winning US composer John Luther Adams’ 2007 piece Canticles of the Sky appears for the first time across all formats.

In March 2017, Coates conducted 32 cellists in the UK premiere of the composition, displaying its intimacies after deeply communing with the trajectories of Adams’ fictional suns and moons, the guiding characters and carriers of the piece.

This recorded interpretation, performed by Coates for multi-layered solo cello, takes Canticles of the Sky to wondrous, dizzying new heights, envisaging Adams’ parallel dimension as an idealised construction. Marrying extra-musical studio techniques and meticulous arrangements to Coates’ fascination with early electronic synthesis (especially the work of Laurie Spiegel), the result offers an ultra-sensory take on classical string instrumentation.

Coates has released a handful of solo records under his own name, including the acclaimed 2016 album Upstepping, 2017’s Remain Calm, a collaboration with Mica Levi, and most recently, 2018’s Shelley’s On Zenn-La, his debut album for RVNG. As an artist and performer, he is frequently commissioned by world-renowned orchestras, choreographers and visual artists to compose or curate integral new works.

Tracklist
LP

Side A (45 RPM)
A1. Sky With Four Suns
A2. Sky With Four Moons

Side B (45 RPM)
B1. Sky With Nameless Colors
B2. Sky With Endless Stars

DIGITAL

01. Sky With Four Suns
02. Sky With Four Moons
03. Sky With Nameless Colors
04. Sky With Endless Stars
05. Above Sunset Pass
06. The Wind At Maclaren Summit
07. Looking Toward Hope
08. Above Sunset Pass (Alt FX Render)

Videos