stef.in ‘Icterus II’ Album Preview

 Miles Davis’ much-touted ‘electric’ period was widely credited with birthing so-called jazz fusion, and because of this it can be easy for one to forget the true breadth of its infuence. A crucial ingredient in Miles’ cauldron of styles during this time was Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom he frst heard in 1972 (and later collaborated with in a yet-unpublished session). This fact provides an important reminder that the binding agent in Davis’ singular blend of jazz and rock was experimentation—with texture, electronics, form, and other parameters.

Toronto-based Stefan Hegerat‘s group stef.in is not a fusion band in any traditional sense, nor do they directly resemble anything produced by Miles during the aforementioned era, yet their mixture is plucked from a similar array of elements—rock’s heft (and sometimes its groove), improvisation, as well as various forms of abstraction. Hegerat, the band’s composer, leads the outfit from behind the drum kit, while Patrick O’Reilly and Robyn Gray’s pedal-mangled guitars variously tangle, flail and float across Mark Godfrey’s sturdy bass-work. The group has been active since 2017 and the year after their founding, they released their debut album, the first instalment of Icterus.

Icterus II, their second release, was written and recorded some five years after its predecessor and while it’s a clear descendent from the earlier album, it also veers even further off a math-rock path to delight in strange nuances of colour and atmosphere. Hegerat cites grappling with the complexities of mid- and post-pandemic life as crucial background to these compositions, especially themes of socio-political upheaval and mental health. And while there’s clear angst and confusion driving this music, these uneasy aspects are palpably tempered by a certain ecstatic element, doubtlessly honed throughout the group’s extensive tour history.

“This project is very much a vessel for making music with my favourite artists,” reveals Hegerat. “Writing for Robyn and Patrick has always been as simple as penning some bizarre, half-finished musings and then letting them blast off into outer space.” Indeed the key to this ensemble’s chemistry is their dovetailing of skewed, propulsive riffage and improvisational forays.

Both O’Reilly (collaborator to Language Arts, Christine Duncan, and the late Justin Haynes) and Gray (Jessica Ackerley, Colin Hinton, Ky (Constellation)) have enormous palettes on the guitar, spanning all the way from No Wave-ish laceration to plumes of ambience and from microtonal meanderings to distortion-laden chug. As Hegerat notes “Mark is our rock, holding down jagged, rhythmic vamps and anchoring the whole thing frmly to the ground,” yet that’s not to say Godfrey’s contributions remain exclusively in low-end lockstep either. The album’s weightless passages—and there are numerous—often wrap themselves around the award-winning bassist’s lyrical melodic contours, situating him as a different sort of focal point.

Stefan Hegerat has been working full-time as a musician and educator since 2012 and in that time accumulated a vast range of experience, several facets of which come to bear on the present project’s eclecticism. In addition to stef.in, he leads the wayward prog-pop outft Parade with vocalist Laura Swankey and keyboard virtuoso Chris Pruden. He also performs alongside everyone from Fortunato Durutti Marinetti (who have released music on Soft Abuse), to Protest The Hero tour-mates Chinese Medicine. He’s a member of Alex Fournier’s Trio and yet is an integral part of JJ and the Pillars, winners of the 102.1 Edge Next Big Thing Contest in 2015. His composition for the latter group, “The Wolves” has racked up over four million streams since its release.

At the other end of the spectrum, Hegerat counts some of improvised music’s most important figures among his teachers. He has studied with the likes of Michael Formanek, Tim Berne, Dan Weiss, Jacob Sacks, Tom Rainey, Gerald Cleaver, Nick Fraser, Andrew Downing, and Terry Clarke, and brings this adventurous spirit to much of his work. Hegerat has been heard on a predictably diverse array of stages including the Ottawa Jazz Festival, L’Off Festival de Jazz (Montréal), Toronto Jazz Festival, Open Waters Festival, The Elora Festival, Edge Fest, The Casby Awards and at various venues across the country during multiple Canadian tours.

As a composer, Hegerat has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award, has had his work featured in the Netfix-distributed show Bitten, on George Stroumboulopoulos’ “The Strombo Show”, and been played heavily on both commercial and college radio across North America and beyond.

TRACK LISTING

Three Wars ~ Here’s to Circle ~ Aku San Zan ~ Dosage ~ Juan Soto ~ Old Guard ~ Our Circle ~ Leave Unattended and Suffer the Consequences

CREDITS

Robyn Gray ~ Guitar

Patrick O’Reilly ~ Guitar

Mark Godfrey ~ Bass

Stefan Hegerat ~ Drums

Recorded at The Barn by Jean Martin ~ Mixed and Mastered by Jean Martin

Artwork by Amy Weber

Design by AJ Wright

All music by Stefan Hegerat © 2023