Album Notes

Enter a world of splendid acoustic sound. Canadian composers Robert Minden and Carla Hallett create a delicate resonance of microtonal nuance and lyrical intimacy that surrounds Marlatt’s poetic voicing, rhythm and imagery. Her words bring you to the river's mouth and into a sensuous landscape of lives lived in canneries, fishing camps, on the sea and over time.

This fascinating CD offers a deeply felt experience that takes you gently in.

"Like Light Off Water is a new kind of soundscape, the musical score of 3 psyches collaborating on what is certainly one of the great poems of the recent past."
Craig Tapping, Department of English, Vancouver Island University
Nanaimo, Canada

"With an evocative soundscape composed and performed by Minden and Carla Hallett, the images of a “boom and bust” town at the mouth of the Fraser River centered around fishing boats and cannery and the psychological states of its inhabitants are brought to life with qualities ranging from eerie trepidation to awestruck wonder. The quality and pacing of Marlatt’s voice is superb and a striking similarity between her speaking voice and Hallett’s singing makes for a beautifully seamless transition in the narrative flow. ...
The music is sparse but highly effective with mechanical noise set against the rippling and twinkling of water and light, together with haunting depictions of mysterious and erotic undercurrents mixed with the gentle beauty of the night sky. Pure poetry, pure sound, shifting the listener’s consciousness to the depths of pure feeling."
Dianne Wells
The WholeNote Magazine, March 09