​JOYFULTALK Returns with New Album 'A Separation of Being'

Hear "Pixelated Skin" from the three-song suite

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Feb 20, 2020

Just short of two years from taking a Plurality Trip, Nova Scotia composer and visual artist Jay Crocker has readied a new album as JOYFULTALK.

Crocker will release A Separation of Being on March 13 through Constellation Records. The three-part suite is said to be the artist's most "focused, vibrant work to date," channelling Japanese environmental music, Maghrebian rhythmic modes and more.

The three-part A Separation of Being was created with Crocker's "Planetary Music System," a visualized composition method he began developing in 2012 that is also immortalized in the cover art above.

Crocker took his compositions "from two-dimensional page to trans-dimensional aural life" using a selection of homemade instruments and enlisting award-winning composer Jesse Zubot for a crowning string arrangement.

You can hear the song suite's second movement, "Pixelated Skin," below.

Crocker has also mapped out a brief Canadian tour of Ontario and Quebec in March, ahead of festival dates out east in April and June. A performance at Halifax's EVERYSEEKER festival will find him accompanied by a live string section.

A Separation of Being is now available for pre-order.

A Separation of Being:

1. Part I - I've Got That Trans-Dimensional Feeling Again
2. Part II - Pixelated Skin
3. Part III - Liquified then evaporated

Tour dates:

03/12 Quebec City, QC - Librairie Saint-Jean-Baptiste
03/15 Guelph, ON - Silence
03/16 Toronto, ON - Burdock Music Hall
03/18 Montreal, QC - Ursa
03/19 Ottawa, ON - Cinqhole
04/23-26 Fredericton, NB - Flourish Festival
06/18-21 Halifax, NS - EVERYSEEKER *

* with live string section

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