Colin Stetson released in 2024 The love it took to leave you through Invada Records outside North America and Envision Records within it. The album was recorded at The Darling Foundry in Montreal, a former metalworks site now functioning as a 3500-square-metre art complex. The building’s main room retains its original brick, concrete and steel construction.
Artist: Colin Stetson
Release Date: 2024-09-13
Genres: Avant-garde, Experimental Music, Industrial Music, Noise Rock
Label: Invada Records
Description: Colin Stetson's The Love It Took To Leave You recorded at Montreal industrial site, released October 2024 on Invada Records.
Featured image: Jonathan Durand
Stetson and Jonas Werwijnen, who has engineered his live sound for ten years, used a full PA system during the recording sessions. The approach stems from their work in larger venues, where they have developed methods of incorporating room acoustics directly into the compositions rather than simply adjusting for them. The technique involves saturating the space with amplified saxophone to capture the interaction between instrument and architecture. The stereo imaging on The love it took to leave you results from this process of using the physical characteristics of industrial spaces as part of the recording method itself. The aim was to document the spatial and relational aspects of performance rather than isolate the instrument from its environment.
Stetson brings the material to the UK in April 2026. The short run includes a performance at Clapham Grand in London on 16 April. The dates mark his first UK appearances since performing the Hereditary soundtrack at the Barbican in 2024.
Stetson has worked across film, television and video game soundtracks alongside a body of solo recordings. His group projects include an album with Sarah Neufeld, releases with the quartet Ex Eye, and a reworking of Górecki’s third symphony titled Sorrow. He has contributed to recordings by Arcade Fire, The National, Bon Iver, LCD Soundsystem, The Chemical Brothers, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Feist, BadBadNotGood, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker and Shahzad Ismaily. Recent session work appears on albums by Brìghde Chaimbeul and Keeley Forsyth.
His saxophone technique incorporates circular breathing, multiphonics, altissimo register playing, microtonal inflection, vocal sounds produced through the reed, percussive use of the instrument’s keys and valves, and growling. He also plays clarinet, bass clarinet, French horn, flute and cornet.
His film work includes scores for The Menu, Hereditary and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He received the ASCAP Screen Music Award in 2023 for The Menu. His album When we were that what wept from the sea, written following the death of his father, won a Juno Award. Two film soundtracks are scheduled for 2026: Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen and The Whisper Man.
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