a review by Paul Cordes Wilm

Love Hurts : Colin Stetson’s the love it took to leave you

Gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching … and on a primal, instinctive level, soul-wrenching. That’s how I would describe my first, my second and all of my successive listens to Canadian-American Colin Stetson’s new masterwork, The love it took to leave you. Stetson’s intense alto saxophone work has provided the soundtrack to an impressive list of films in the last 10 or so years. Soundtracks that thrill, frighten, move or sadden the viewer (and listener) to the very core. But his best and most important “soundtracks” are the ones he creates for and from his own personal experiences. This is one of those.

The sounds that seem to flicker and burn like hot, spiritual fire from Colin Stetson’s saxophone are like no other sounds I have ever heard. In fact, at times it’s difficult to even tell that it’s actually a saxophone making the music. He uses the instrument like a painter does with paint, like a filmmaker with film. And in addition to those incredible sounds, Stetson oftentimes will wordlessly, soulfully and harmonically sing through his horn while he’s playing it, creating an extremely haunting sound that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. For me, it’s the simultaneous singing and playing that pushes his music into the category of genius.

Title and theme-wise, it’s sometimes difficult to tell what inspirations lie behind some of Stetson’s solo releases. The artist himself has claimed that this particular album is a “love letter to self and solitude and to tall old trees  that sway and creak in the wind and rain.” But both the title and the title track of this album hint at something more : the pain of personal loss; the mourning of a loved one; the emotional overflow of a relationship breaking apart. In each individual song, there is audible, tangible grief, albeit a rather beautiful one. Whatever the human inspiration, this music contains something intensely and spiritually palpable, something very stirring and extremely real.

And it’s an oddly cathartic experience as well. Every additional listen to The love it took to leave you has felt to me like a mystical healing of sorts; an indescribable cleansing sonic magic that not only music in general, but this particular album’s brand of music can conjure up. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that this is Colin Stetson’s best and most fully-realized work to date. He put every bit of his heart, mind and soul into this personal “soundtrack”. And you can not only hear it, you can feel it.