Hēran Soun - Undeaf
HĒRAN SOUN RELEASES IMAGINATIVE ‘UNDEAF’
Hēran Soun is the musical doppelganger of James Freeman-Turner, who releases his first album, Undeaf.
Hēran Soun | Photo: Kirby Stenger
With his inimitable association with music – he was born with an acute loss of hearing, which eventually declined into total deafness – James embarked on an arduous journey back to hearing, going through multiple surgeries and protracted speech therapy to salvage his hearing and his voice.
His unique relationship to sound arrives in the form of unusual time signatures, asymmetrical rhythms, and atypical arrangements, at once unnerving yet aesthetically pleasing. Complementing his nonconforming approach to music is the total freedom to explore his musical impulses – access to the world-class recording studio owned by the son of Roy Lichtenstein.
James lived in an RV just outside the 25th Street Studio in Oakland, California. Sleeping during the day, he would emerge at night to enter the studio, where he had unlimited entree to indulge his creativity.
The result is Undeaf, comprising 11-tracks, beginning with “I Offer,” which opens on a plangent piano riding a snapping rhythm, topped by almost eerie vocals backed by deep vibrating bass. Initially jarring, the song assumes an ethereal quality akin to a curious sonic vista, strange as a dream, but enormously beguiling.
'Undeaf' is superb, delivering the sonic equivalent of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention – and extraordinarily beautiful.
“A Picture of A Woman” blends classical flavors with R&B/hip-hop cadence and hints of the operatic into a totally original creation, stumbling, halting, yet gorgeously evocative in the sum of its parts. Hēran Soun’s falsetto is simultaneously crystalline and penetratingly haunting.
“Bad & Worse” opens on trembling colors flowing into heavy dark droning textures, shimmering with echoing resonance. A crisp beat, sporadic and urgent, fills the rhythmic flow with tight tension. A soft, piano-laced breakdown flavored by strings segues into swelling layers of delicate sound while a snare drum rattles and rolls portentously.
“Let Me Go” combines wavering tones of surf-rock with sepulchral, drifting textures rife with quavering melancholy. Exuding sylph-like timbres, Hēran Soun’s voice imbues the lyrics with aching loss, regret, and tenderness, both bewitching and tumescent with emotion.
“Who Are You” features a cappella filtered vocals, followed by a slowly emerging piano, almost austere, as Hēran Soun’s voice, dissonant yet oh so evocative, fills the lyrics with mystifying, luscious complexity.
Undeaf is superb, delivering the sonic equivalent of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention – and extraordinarily beautiful.
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