Accelerate Every Voice cover art

Accelerate Every Voice

Released: June 2020

Tracks:

  1. Northern Cities Vowel Shift
  2. Accelerate Every Voice
  3. Marl Every Voice
  4. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 1
  5. Vehemently view
  6. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 2
  7. Knot Every Voice
  8. Weatherproof Song
  9. Piano and Ocean Waves For Deep Relaxation
Accelerate Every Voice cover art

Accelerate Every Voice

Released: June 12, 2020

Tracks:

  1. Northern Cities Vowel Shift
  2. Accelerate Every Voice
  3. Marl Every Voice
  4. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 1
  5. Vehemently view
  6. Kinetic Whirlwind Sculpture 2
  7. Knot Every Voice
  8. Weatherproof Song
  9. Piano and Ocean Waves For Deep Relaxation

Cory Smythe – The New York Times – Seth Colter Walls

July 7, 2020

“Accelerate Every Voice,” a new album, is a step forward in another facet of this dazzling pianist’s career: composing. Cory Smythe’s new album blends references to hyper-complex contemporary classical styles, the jazz-meets-vocal music of Andrew Hill’s 1970 record “Lift Every …

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Cory Smythe – Pan M 360 – Réjean Beaucage

July 6, 2020

Pianist Cory Smythe took the stage at FIMAV in May 2019 with the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, an ensemble that gave an impressive concert in which Smythe’s very original playing literally stole the show. The recording of this disc dates from …

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Cory Smythe – The New Yorker – Steve Smith

July 6, 2020

In 1969, Andrew Hill, an idiosyncratic jazz master who’d gigged with Charlie Parker and studied with Paul Hindemith, paired a vocal chorus with a hard-swinging quintet to record “Lift Every Voice,” a buoyant set of upbeat incantations. Now, just over …

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More Reviews

Cory Smythe Interview & Listening Party

Many muddled accelerations shape this: beginning with my longstanding but increasingly spellbound appreciation for Andrew Hill’s record Lift Every Voice and the James Weldon Johnson-derived lineage of optimistic songcraft it transforms; likewise, the fast-evolving sophistication of collegiate a cappella (a scene suggested by Hill’s vocable-singing choir) on its mutating path from the Kipling-glossing “Whiffenpoof Song” to iridescent cyborg pop; the calamitous choirs of piano-engulfing ocean waves presaged in Annea Lockwood’s music and presently hastening inland; the crowds gathering in America to greet them, the crescendo of our infectious chants and cheers. — Cory Smythe

Compositions by Cory Smythe, Pluripotent Publishing (BMI)

Recorded by Ryan Streber in December, 2018 at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)

Vocal direction/additional production by Kari Francis

Mixed by Ryan Streber and Cory Smythe in August, 2019 at Oktaven Audio

Mastered by Scott Hull in January, 2020 at Masterdisk (Peekskill, NY)

Images by Julian Charrière, The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories I-IV, 2013 (copyright the artist © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany)

Album design and layout by Spottswood Erving and July Creek for Janky Defense

Produced by Cory Smythe and David Breskin

THANK YOU: to Kari, Kyoko, Michael, Raquel, and Steve for their brilliant, inspiring and enormously generous musicianship—and again to Kari for her direction and tutelage in all things ‘aca’; to Ryan and Scott for their incomparable sonic artistry; to David for his patience, care, and Socratic methods; to Kris Davis for her superhuman work; to Chelsea Hadley and The Shifting Foundation for their invaluable support; to Julian Charrière for the enormous privilege of associating my work with his; to July and Spottswood for the visual rhythms of their pseudonymous collaboration; and to Liz, beloved a capella fan, for all the inventive ways you wed my joys to yours. — CS