Out of Darkness, Light

Out Of Darkness, Light is the second studio album from Gunshae (pronounced Gun-shai), the Panambient orchestra compromised of Canadian dubstep pioneer, Kuma; and internationally renowned oboist and DJ, Lady Eve. The album presents eight tracks developed from improvisations recorded over a four year span in Vancouver, Cancun, Seattle, Uculet, San Francisco, Tokyo, Melbourne and New Smyrna Beach. Live performances were recorded and taken back to the Den Studios in Vancouver were they were over-dubbed, invoked and expanded upon.

Gunshae is live ambience at its most beguiling, an exploration of the grey area between electronic and classical musics. It's molten woodwinds and Satie in dub. It's heavy drones and music played by a band sitting on a veranda with Wong Kar-Wai. While these works certainly drift in the same musical sky as Stars Of the Lid, Zoviet France and Murcof, they are as the album's penultimate suite suggests, both celestial and oceanic. Happily content to be carried gently between the chill out room, the concert hall and the art gallery, Out Of Darkness, Light has no qualms in reminding you that sometimes, it just is.

While Gunshae's backbone is built on Kuma's loops and Lady Eve's woodwinds, Gunshae has never has never turned away from playing with others on an international scale. Australian poet Graham Colin opens the album with an invocation for experience on "Air Into Gold" while Tokyo analogue synth legend, Hataken, brings added drift to "Celestial, Yet Oceanic, " a song based on a performance he followed at the Soundwave Music festival in 2008. "2046" and "What Would Wong Kar Wai Do?" feature Vancouver clarinet virtuoso Shawn Earle and the shoegazer bass and vocals of Hong Kong's Pari Kishi. Vanessa Stovall's harp underpins "Oceanic, Yet Celestial," beats out rhythm and sends shards of light everywhere. The album concludes with a remix of "I Left My Heart At Arena Mexico" by Mexicali electronic music icon and Static Discos label founder, Fax.