Bruce Hornsby and yMusic – BrhyM – release “Deep Sea Vents” on March 1. “Deep Blue”, the first single, features Noisemaker Chad Wright on drums and is out now. Here are all the links you need!
Bruce’s social channels describe it as “an album of ten songs about water and the ways we live with, in or against it… Hornsby and yMusic as you have never heard them, but also instantly identifiable in their own ways”.
Branford Marsalis plays soprano sax on “Platypus Wow” and “Phase Change”, and Mark Dover (clarinetist for Imani Woods) contributes clarinet on “The Wake of St. Brendan” and “Deep Blue”. BrhyM comprises:
Bruce Hornsby: piano, dulcimer, vocals, electric sitar and bass on “Deep Blue”
Alex Sopp: flute, piccolo and vocals
Hideaki Aomori: clarinets
CJ Camerieri: trumpet and flugelhorn
Rob Moose: violin
Nadia Sirota: viola
Gabriel Cabezas: cello.
We took a closer look at yMusic in May 2020: who is yMusic? Their shows with Bruce from April 29 2019 and April 30 2019 shows are available for download on this site.
Here’s a “Deep Sea Vents” track listing:
- The Wild Whaling Life (4:21) – “Lending the humour of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the dulcimer lifting a refrain that works as a proclamation of pride”. Bruce describes this on his Facebook page as “our Sea Chantey – I was finally reading Moby Dick (Melville was a funny guy) at the same time yMusic sent me this evocative track, a notable serendipitous confluence of events!”.
- (My) Theory of Everything (3:26) – “Hornsby adds meaty chords to yMusic’s delicate string whorls and sputtering horn lines. He steadily relays the story of a scientist in a nearby aquatic research lab, checking for pollution and analyzing data to do his job.”
- Platypus Wow (3:49) – “dipping horns and slashing strings become the prompt for a quasi-rap, detailing the life and eccentricity of the egg-laying mammal”
- Phase Change (4:22) – “turning the various states of water into a metaphor for a difficult first date over drinks”
- Foreign Sounds (4:30) – “gorgeous but heartbreaking, picking up the croon of George Jones to share the perspective of a clownfish, lost at sea because of the underwater noise pollution that is currently wrecking ecosystems. The song comes from Hornsby’s rapacious reading, but it is much more than an academic exercise; it is, instead, a true ballad for the blighted, the heartsick, and the stranded”
- The Wake of St Brendan (3:40) – “stemming from The New York Times’ obituary of Tim Severin, a sailor who re-created the arduous journeys of early explorers. Bruce’s voice is warped by electronics and teased by strings, singing a hymn not just for Severin but for anyone who’s found an unorthodox way of existing, of following an obsession to the very ends of the earth”
- Deep Blue (3:22) – “the existential anxiety of exploration becomes a funky strut stuck somewhere between triphop and Ligeti”
- The Baited Line (2:35)
- Barber Booty (3:05) – “a madcap advertisement for pirate escapades; devilish strings and shouting horns, as though some faction of an orchestra had rebelled against sonority”
- Deep Sea Vents (3:34) – “an almost-vaudeville prance, with horns splashing and bass diving, a musical simulacrum of the teeming underwater world… a triumphant showtune from an aquatic musical that didn’t exist”.
Single “Deep Blue” out now:
Pre-order links:
Compact Disc:
Digital:
Vinyl:
Bruce played the title track with yMusic at east coast shows in early 2020, each time as en encore. Join them all on tour through March and April – select shows will include a copy of “Deep Sea Vents” on CD with the ticket. See 2024 Bruce Hornsby tour dates.
There is plenty more detail on the official Bruce Hornsby website.
Here’s the first single, Deep Blue. Says the press release, “the existential anxiety of exploration becomes a funky strut stuck somewhere between triphop and Ligeti for “Deep Blue,” with Hornsby on electric sitar.”: