Kara-Lis Coverdale returns to Smalltown Supersound with her fourth full-length album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, a collection of nine pieces, dedicated to solo piano. Known for her musical innovations at the intersection of experimental electronics and minimalist traditions, Coverdale’s previous albums Aftertouches, Grafts and, most recently, From Where You Came (Smalltown Supersound) garnered special acclaim for their deep exploration of timbre. On A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, Coverdale deepens her investigation of tonal quality by focusing instrumentally on acoustic piano nocturnes. The album’s nine pieces are in a way classic nocturnes (i.e. inspired by night), but also evoke tangential, abstract associations: an animation of melodic webs; moving through a thick substance; sound objects in space. Written and recorded during winter in a small rural studio in Ontario, they also reflect Coverdale’s retreat from maximal sound and a return to acoustic fundamentals. 

The piano’s natural resonance guides the structure of the works, with Coverdale applying subtle electronic processing only to lightly blur the edges of melody and blend harmonics. Additionally, audible breaths underscore the album’s connection to the body’s inherent rhythms and multiple sonorities: the piano’s timbre and natural harmonics, as well as its effect in creating an elusive state of semi-consciousness. Unlike Satie, Debussy or Chopin, Coverdale’s nocturnes are for an even later hour, with a heightened sensitivity to “noise” – or more broadly: anything extraneous to the core harmonic and timbral structure of the piece; and anything that might interfere with clarity, slowness, or perception of space. 

A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever is slow and focuses as much on the decay of piano melody as on its attack. Mood emerges from deceleration and restraint; emerging melodies, inspired by modal influences from the late Renaissance, post-war minimalism, and Coverdale’s idiosyncratic sense of musical ecology, bloom at their own pace. 

In her own words: “This album is an exploration of harmony in space, music as an antithesis to silence. A silence that does not exist.”