A Suite Hereafter

Music for Piano and Imaginary Ensembles

A Suite Hereafter - CD jewel case closed A Suite Hereafter is the second volume of the Broken Saints soundtrack series. Like Passage before it, Hereafter existed before the series began, and was inspirational in its original development as well as in setting the atmosphere for much of the early series. Again, several tracks are of key importance to the series or to individual characters: Zelem, Jabarsa and Kenoma (Shandala), Qaf (Oran and other military scenes), Shekhinah (used for many disorienting or vision segments), and Jabalqa (featured in the epilogue). This new version of the album features remixes of Zelem not on the original pressing, but featured in the series.

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The music on A Suite Hereafter was originally conceived as the soundtrack for Opaque, a dance poetry solo by Lori Hamar, produced by Suddenly Dance Theatre, Victoria. It has been substantially re-worked to express my current fascination with historical, spiritual and literary notions of resurrection.

The titles are drawn from the Sufi, Kabbalah and Christian Gnostic traditions, and refer to various stages in the journey towards resurrection in this life - the idea being that true resurrection is simply our world, re-imagined...

A Suite Hereafter features piano, french horn, soprano vocal (Cathy Peddlesden) and drums (Joby Baker) prominently, with flute, Hammond organ, synthesizer, electric bass, Jaymar toy piano and Persian hand drum playing supportive roles. it was recorded and mixed entirely on computer at Bigger Boots Audio in Victoria, B.C., Canada. Stylistically, it ranges from minimalist, trance-inducing polyrhythmic patterns (think Michael Nymans or Philip Glass) to rather intense, twisted and distorted tone poetry, to spacious, resonant vistas that summon a strange, magical calm.

Some notes on the song titles:

  • The Eighth Climate (Sufi): The Resurrected World (seven being nature's)
  • Merkabah: the chariot that bore the Enthroned Man in Ezekiel's vision. Also, a pre-Kabbalistic school of Jewish Gnostic mysticism
  • Kenoma (Christian Gnostic): the Cosmological Emptiness (our world)...
  • Zelem (Kabbalah): the Astral of Resurrection Body
  • Qaf (Sufi): an Emerald mountain barrier surrounding our world and separating us from the resurrected world
  • Jabarsa, Jabalqa and Hurqalya (Sufi): the cities of the Celestial Earth
  • Shekhinah (Kabbalah): 'the feminine indwelling presence of God in the world'...