LUKA KUPLOWSKY & THE RYŌKAN BAND REVEAL NEW DOUBLE LP, HOW CAN I POSSIBLY SLEEP WHEN THERE IS MUSIC, OUT MAY 31, 2024 VIA NEXT DOOR RECORDS
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Today, Luka Kuplowsky announces his new album, How Can I Possibly Sleep When There Is Music, and is sharing the title track from the double LP. The record begins with a deceptively simple exchange: the call and response of an artless whistle and the thud of a wood-block. As if a herald to the band, these two sounds precipitate a kaleidoscope of swirling movement and the intoxicating sounds of spiritual jazz, folk and blues that carve out the sonic terrain. Conceived as a record of adaptations and responses “to a millennia of poetry”, the album draws together the poems of Ryōkan Taigu, Bohdan Ihor Antonych, Rainer Maria Rilke, Yosana Akiko, Du Fu, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, W.W.E Ross, Li Bai, and La Fontaine, placing them within a dynamic environment of ecstatic and imaginative expression. Think Bill Callahan meets Don Cherry’s Organic Music Society, an ECM produced Leonard Cohen record, or Lou Reed fronting the Astral Weeks band, and you get a sense of the record’s unique terrain.
The first single, “How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music (a response to Ryōkan Taigu)”, which features vocalist Felicity Williams and flutist Anh Phoung, reflects on Ryōkan Taigu 良寛大愚, a Soto Zen Buddhist monk. Quiet, spirited, generous. A hermit whose masterful poetry and calligraphy was an extension of his deep love of nature and playful attitude towards life. Stirred by Ryōkan’s poem and its restless, joyful sentiment, the song carries forth as a response and conversation across centuries.
Kuplowsky adds, “Felicity overtaking the vocal melody at the end and reacting to Anh’s flute sets up a framework for the album; a trading forth and conversation between voices and sounds. How special to be in a world so animated by a curiosity and love of sound. And to dance and move to it! How can one even sleep!”
The song arrives with a video directed and edited by Kuplowsky. “With every blurred hazy cellphone moon we confront technology's failure to render the moon’s beauty,” he explains. “Even Ryōkan, a half century before the camera, likely felt how poetry fails in this pursuit as well. Perhaps the moon’s allure is not visual or speakable at all? Perhaps it registers in the soul…as music! Who knows! This video accepts that failure, playfully superimposing dancing celestial bodies captured with my camera and setting them against the expressive rush of a repurposed 16mm collage of fabric paint, cut-up film negative, stenciled marker and scratching. It’s a video that suddenly arose and came together quite serendipitously.
“The collage was made collaboratively with Noncedo Khumalo, Franci Duran, Yu Zheng, Deirdre Logue, Terry Jones, Becky Yip, Omid Shakiba, Scott Lalonde and myself for Phillip Hoffman and Franci Duran’s Process Cinema course. My dearest Mo drew the handwritten title cards.”
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Album Poster
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The accompanying poster to the album lays out the record’s lyrical and musical inspirations in a Pirosmani-like tableau beautifully rendered by his brother Adam Kuplowsky, picturing Luka at his desk surrounded by a plethora of books, vinyls, tapes and objects: on one side, records by blues and folk artists, Elizabeth Cotton and Howlin’ Wolf, are strewn beside Tang Dynasty poets Du Fu and Li Bai; on the other side, records by contemporary peers like Yves Jarvis and Bernice sit next to a book of the 18th century Zen monk poet Taigu Ryōkan. Directly in front of Kuplowsky, and next to a half-eaten donut and coffee, lies the heart of the record, a cassette tape of the Canadian songwriter Beverley Glenn-Copeland’s 1986 cult-classic Keyboard Fantasies. Copeland’s presence is central to the record, as it was a poignant meeting with him in 2017 that thrust Kuplowsky into the web of connections between Buddhist thought, jazz/blues/folk traditions, and an array of poets spanning across two millennia. Describing his meeting with Glenn, Kuplowsky recalls:
“Glenn had come out to a show I was playing at Thunder and Lightning, a small tavern in Sackville, New Brunswick. Having discovered his record Keyboard Fantasies a year before, I was in awe. After the show, he greeted the band, seriously and sincerely reviewing each of our playing and recognizing the ways we interacted as a band. The next day before we were leaving town, Glenn invited my bandmate, Bianca Palmer and I to his studio. Over a couple hours, we shared stories, works in progress, and at one point, improvised freely – myself at the keyboard, Bianca on a ‘spirited’ drum machine and Glenn singing. During our conversation, Glenn talked about his Buddhist practice and creativity, often returning to the idea that ‘humans are both creators and conduits of eternal creative energies’ beamed in from the Universal Broadcasting System. I started to recognize how the playfulness, calmness and incredible patience of his personality, music and spiritual practice were all one. I left that day - floating.
“Arriving home after the tour, I found myself re-dedicated to my local library. After Glenn’s conversation, my interests turned towards Buddhism and poetry that reminded me of Glenn’s spirituality and playfulness.”
Kuplowsky’s spark quickly illuminated a vast array of connections, expanding from the Buddhist poetry of Ryokan Taigu, to the Tang dynasty poets Du Fu and Li Bai, the melancholic orphic refrains of Rainer Maria Rilke, the impressionistic and elemental Bohdan Ihor Antonych and the ecstatic joy of Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī, among others. As a means to make sense of what he was reading, Kuplowsky turned to song, responding, interpreting and adapting poems that called out to him:
“Poetry and music became an inseparable practice. I would read for hours, and when a song called out, I would play. Some poems felt so comfortable as songs; not a word was out of place when I began to sing. Others began to naturally extend themselves to other songs I had been writing, blurring and unraveling into their own worlds. My aim was not to faithfully reflect the original intention of the poems, but to respond to them as they struck me. In this way, my poetic adaptations are better understood as responses or interpretations, following language and bending or modifying it to meet me in the moment of its resonance.”
Across the album’s twenty-four tracks, Kuplowsky filters his thoughts through the poetic language of his muses, expounding on the delight of music, the unexpected joy of a visitor, instructions for meditation, and the wonder of the natural world’s creative energies. The language is at once unadorned and conversational, while also strikingly beautiful and poetic. The effect is not unlike the child-like sublimity of Jonathan Richman in its direct and refreshing clarity. In Ryōkan’s “What Luck!”, the startling, yet humble discovery of a “coin in his bag” leads to an inebriated reunion with his friend Sleeping Dragon. In “Self Portrait”, Kuplowsky via Antonych sings in awe of the “incomprehensible beauty of creation”, aptly titling himself “a poet on the high of spring”. In the melancholic rendering of Ross’ “If Birds are Silent”, the absence of bird song is yearned to “echo with the dawn” and “be repeated each early day”. In the title track Kuplowsky responds to a Ryōkan poem with the utter conviction of music and dance’s powerful nocturnal allure, “How can I possibly sleep when there is music and dancing / I love dancing too!” Throughout the various poetic guises Kuplowsky adopts there remains a passion to engage with the unknown, an intoxication in the natural world’s awesome wonder and an innocent delight in simple pleasures.
Following 2020’s Stardust, a rich otherworldly album of pop and jazz romanticism, How Can I Possibly Sleep When There Is Music extends Kuplowsky’s interest with improvisational structures and live recording, as its seven-piece band crafts a singular sound of spaciousness, experimentation and unbridled expressiveness. This is music where every instrument is a character and every character is in conversation with each other: the acrobatic vocals of Felicity Williams ricochet off the unbridled virtuosity of Anh Phung’s flute and Kuplowsky’s warm, rich tenor; the dual percussionists, Evan Cartwright and Phil Melanson, interweave rhythmic counterpoint through an arsenal of beguiling sounds; Josh Cole’s deep pocket bass locks into Kuplowsky’s spidery nylon string guitar, occasionally blossoming into playful figures and brilliant somersaults; Alex Lukashevsky’s electric guitar oscillates between sensitive counterpoint, percussive wah-wah and blistering noise. Like Stardust, the album was recorded entirely live with little isolation between the seven member band, a testament to the deep listening and musical trust so central to Kuplowsky’s vision and the players he collaborates with. The three day session for tracking was led by the luminary Toronto producer/songwriter Sandro Perri, whose gentle presence and sensitivity in guiding the session and mixing the album imbues the proceedings with his ingenuity for sonic adventurism and organic warmth.
Kuplowsky dubs the group The Ryōkan Band; a nod to the improvisational playfulness central to Ryōkan’s outlook, as well as a tribute to his poetry’s influence in informing the responsive songwriting practice that inspired the album. As a band they achieve an exceptional group sound, one that is rooted in traditions of jazz, blues and folk, not as a genre exercise or pastiche, but as a means to express individual and recombinant personalities. While songwriter traditions so often attribute the voice as a song’s anchor of meaning, one might consider listening to this record with the flute, guitar, percussion, or bass as equally integral narrators of the songs. To think of the band as accompanists is to misconstrue the record’s aim; this is collaborative music in its richest sense. Signaling this approach, the record is structured with percussive interludes, titled poetically to reflect their emotional tenor or subject. These brief textural moments, absent of lyrics but rich with meaning, draw attention to the way in which the album’s mode of poetic adaptation extends far beyond the lyrics, musically embellishing animated environments to interact and broaden the poetry's scope. In “Mid Summer” the buzzing drone of harmonicas, flutes, vocals and guitars conjures a humid summer day teaming with insects, before Kuplowsky begins to recite a Ryōkan poem about a chance meeting with a friend by the waterside. In “Don’t Be Jealous of the Ocean’s Generosity”, Anh Phung’s flute and Felicity Williams vocals trade off cascading lines mirroring the ‘jumping fish’ of the song’s refrain. In “The Frog That Wants to Make Itself As Big As An Ox”, Josh Cole’s bass bellows like a croaking amphibian, while Anh Phung’s atonal flute flourishes resemble the rapidly inflating ego and body of the titular frog.
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For Kuplowsky and The Ryōkan Band adaptation is not a process of placing poetry over music, but rather an active and responsive process of interpreting and realizing the poem in an instance of music. The album is a rare occasion; a merger. Ancient and distant poet masters alive in the compositions of a masterful songwriter and brilliant improvisers. It is a translation after the translation, sensitively rendered in tribute and participation. These are songs that will echo into the future as the poems herein have leapt to us from the far past. Like Du Fu’s letter to “Pi Ssu Yao”, “we can console each other / at least we will have descendants”. Poets and musicians embrace and stroll, hand in hand.
Returning to the central question of how this record came to be, Kuplowsky concludes:
“There was no grand conceit in bringing together poems by Ryōkan Taigu, Bohdan Ihor Antonych, Rainer Maria Rilke, Yosana Akiko, Du Fu, Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, W.W.E Ross, Li Bai, and La Fontaine. They were poems I came across that resonated and opened themselves up to song. It is in this shared resonance that a connection is forged. These are poems that reached me; they mirrored back thoughts of my own writing, while challenging or opening up new pathways and ways of thinking. In hindsight, the poets in this collection were fringe or cultish figures in their time, challenging the poetic tradition of their contemporaries. In their works, they share a recognition of creativity as an unknowable and spiritual force (Glenn’s Universal Broadcasting System), while also focusing on intimate relationships of friends and lovers. While it is partially informed by translation style, the poems that I was drawn to were cutting and direct, often using conversational, unadorned language. They carry an imperative that is powerful, sincere and beautiful.
There is a context to these poems that is equally important to their understanding. But this album is an acknowledgement of the recurring universality of their sentiments. If a song resonates with you, let that be a light towards their poetry and histories.”
HOW CAN I POSSIBLY SLEEP WHEN THERE IS MUSIC
01 Elixir Of Immortality
02 To Pi Ssu Yao (Du Fu)
03 How Can I Possibly Sleep When There Is Music (a response to Ryōkan Taigu)
04 Generous Fool
05 Formal Meditation (Ryōkan Taigu)
06 The Rain Has Not Yet Cleared
07 Self-Portrait (Bohdan Ihor Antonych)
08 Don’t Be Jealous! (a response to Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī)
09 Thoughts In Exile
10 If Your Heart Remains Unchanged (Ryōkan Taigu)
11 I Knew it Would Be You! (Ryōkan Taigu)
12 I Pass the Evening Slowly
13 4 Poems (Yosano Akiko)
14 Dreaming of Li Bai (Du Fu)
15 Thoughts While Travelling
16 Ars Poetica 2 (Bohdan Ihor Antonych)
17 The Frog that Wants to Make Itself as Big as an Ox (Jean De La Fontaine)
18 Mid Summer (Ryōka)
19. If Birds are Silent (W.W.E Ross)
20. What Luck! (Ryōkan Taigu)
21. You Made Me Sing! (a response to Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī)
22. Elixir of Immortality, Pt. 2
23. Wasting (Li Bai)
24. Fugitive Song (a response to Rainer Maria Rilke)
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