SPIN noted recently that Bon Iver bandmember and solo saxophonist Colin Stetson tends to repeat the following story while performing live: “There’s this whale that lives in the Atlantic,” he says. “Its song is off by a few hertz, which renders it unintelligible by all other whales, but it sings this song, continually for over a decade now, and no one will answer.”
The Montreal-based sax man channels that melancholy marine imagery for the new video to “Among the Sef,” the latest single off his upcoming album, New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light (out April 30 via Constellation Records). Filmed by Isaac Gale and David Jensen, the black-and-white clip scans a vast body of water, catching glimpses of a few whales as they break for the surface and then dive back underwater. Shadowy figures watch from the cliffs, the sea foams and churns, and creepy masked creatures suddenly appear before the camera. It’s a water-logged counterpart to the chilly landscape explored in Stetson’s “In Mirrors”/”And in Truth” double-feature.
As an added bonus, fans can now hear To See More Light in all its haunting, Justin Vernon-enriched glory. The entire 11-track collection — which includes the gently droning “High Above a Grey Green Sea” — can be streamed over at NPR.
Colin Stetson 2013 tour dates:
May 2 – Quebec, QC @ Le Cercle
May 3 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rosa
May 4 – Montreal, QC @ Le Sala Rosa
May 7 – Burlington, VT @ Burlington City Arts Center
May 8 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
May 9 – Boston, MA @ Museum of Fine Arts
May 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
May 11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Andy Warhol Museum
May 14 – Cincinnati, OH @ Contemporary Arts Center
May 16 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas
May 17 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Blind Pig
May 19 – Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
June 19 – Calgary, AB @ Sled Island Festival
June 20 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
June 21 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza
June 26 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
June 27 – Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater
June 29 – Honolulu, HI @ Honolulu Museum of Art