Looking for some timeless, uplifting music? Check out Dust of Suns and their new album, Ignes Fatui. Looking for an interesting night out? Check them out at the Parkway on July 9.
Please tell us about Dust of Suns.
The Dust of Suns group formed out of a spur of the moment collaboration when all members the original lineup were playing Fest DuNord with separate music acts.
- Chris Lynch
- John Munson
- Anna Lee Roberts
- Phala Tracy
We played pretty little pieces on Sunday morning . We played at “Peace Point” on Burnside Lake for a little meditative/reflection type slot on the weekend schedule-
For our first collaboration we played a little mozart and other light classical pieces together-at the time I was playing accordion quite a bit and really loved french cafe type music-so I slipped a couple original pieces in that I had written in that vein- and I thought it sounded just magic! So I wrote a whole repertoire in that’s style. I wrote a lot of minor Waltzes, & Musettes and Mazurkas
Your moniker is “we make gorgeous music at all times” and it is. It feels noble and timeless. These songs could be hundreds of years old, yet they still sound fresh. How do you bridge the ages? Is there a conscious effort or is it inherent in the style of music?
Thank you! I write some pieces that are straight nostalgia, like “The Love Soldiers Wedding Waltz” from our first Album “Dreams for Hannah” is my attempt to write a pure Belle Epoque Waltz. In fact I was trying to create the same emotion as Erik Satie’s “Je Te Veux” which was me and Hannah’s wedding song 🙂
But also it is fun to write slightly more modern type pieces that still fit, like “The Ghost Between” on Ignes Fatui or “Pink Flamenco” sort of mix modern soundtrack music with more modern type classical and a little jazz harmony thrown in. But I think the instrumentation also gives a beautiful timeless feel. Also, I can’t believe my luck in the musicians that play in this group-the original lineup was incredible enough, and now we added Martha Mulcahy on Viola who was a huge force on the new record and Jacqueline Ultan took over for Anna after she relocated to Atlanta. Just monster musicians
The title of the new work is Ignes Fatui, which is Latin for Foolish Fires. Which came first, the title or the music? There is a lightness in the music that is very welcome these days and I’m wondering if you decided to bring in the light or after amassing a collection you found it was a common theme.
I was titling the individual pieces from mental pictures that I would create while playing them -so I was looking for a synonym for visions or hallucinations and Ignes Fatui popped up! So it was kind of titled to describe the process-the lightness of the pieces came from from all the musical influences-French Musette, Satie, Film scores, Tin Pan Alley, nostalgia! And the musicians!!
Chris Lynch has created a series of handcrafted dioramas inspired by five of the new songs. Could you share a picture of one and tell us how you see the connection?
Yes! like I was saying above, I had a lot of fun making little scenes in my head that each song was a sort of little soundtrack for-so I thought it would be cool and magical to make a diorama for each piece-I’ve only completed 4 so far but I will make 10! One for each tune-and I thought it would be fun for people to look at if they were put in boxes on stands and had lighting inside-I reached out to some custom wood workers and really lucked out! I found David Fick who made the first 2 and live them but his shop is a little to far out of the metro so the last 2 , and moving forward I tapped a new friend I made named Scott Dutcher, and he lives directly across Lake Nokomis-and also, his are much lighter to carry-haha!
I’ll attach a picture below of the diorama for “The Butterfly Polkinette” I was picturing a french cafe with musicians outside playing music to honor the black jazz musicians that took the form of Black Butterflies above a cafe modeled after Au Vieux Paris d’Arcole which looks like the epitome of a french cafe-Hannah Lynch helped me with the artwork for this diorama and for the record-and by the way, Ive never been to Paris -so it’s all imaginary for me! Musicians like Django all loved american jazz so I looked for Black Butterflies to put in the scene (and I love Duke Ellingtons piece Black Butterfly!)
Please tell us about the upcoming new album event at the Parkway.
I love love love the Parkway-it’s a beautiful venue and I love music paired with movies but I’ll admit I’m a little afraid of the size-both of our previous release celebrations were in beautiful but small spaces so it would feel like lots of people liked this weird little genre we are mining haha. Munson suggested the space! Go figure, he can take a big draw for granted!
But it’s going to be a lovely night no matter what-beautiful music, beautiful movie-Jacqueline has her twin Alicia in town so she’s going to step for a few with her viola-you can’t have too many violists right? Beautiful instrument!
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