C.Diab is readying his newest album, In Love & Fracture, for release on March 19th via producer/journalist Siné Buyuka’s Injazero Records. The Vancouver, BC-based musician, real name Caton Diab, is known for his work as a bowed guitarist and sound collagist. His newest effort was inspired by finding an abandoned cassette on the sidewalk entitled Zen: Katsuya Yokoyama Plays Classical Shakuhachi Masterworks.
Katsuya Yokoyama was a world-renowned Japanese musician who played a vertical bamboo flute called a shakuhachi. Diab describes the cassette’s music as “a perfect mood-setter for reading; not intrusive, but not absent.” While influenced by the sonic atmosphere of his serendipitous find, he was also moved by its medium, choosing to record his two long-form tracks “Love” and “Fracture” to run the length of a two-sided cassette.
Using cello-bowed guitar, flute, trumpet, synthesizer, and subtle tape manipulations, Diab recorded the tracks early in January of 2021. Still living under quarantine, but instilled with the sense of hopefulness that a new year might bring, he says: “I think it ultimately became something which reflected my mood of the moment, swinging wildly from positivity and empathy to hurt and pessimism, and back again.”
While initially inspired by Zen’s relaxing influence and figuring his compositions would follow suit, the musician reports being surprised that they took a more active turn. He offers, “What I assumed would be two calm, drone pieces transformed into something else entirely over the course of the days, becoming something featuring much more movement and chaos.”
Below, you can listen to “Love” from C.Diab’s In Love & Fracture.
