Charlotte Greve Sediments We Move
SEDIMENTS WE MOVE
CHARLOTTE GREVE
release date: August 27, 2021
On October 15, 2021, New Amsterdam and firgureight will release Sediments We Move, the new seven-part album from German-born, Brooklyn-based composer, singer, and saxophonist Charlotte Greve. The winner of two ECHO Jazz Prizes (the German equivalent of a GRAMMY), Greve has been praised as the “Best of Bandcamp” for her nebulous sound—one that flows freely between choral music, rock, noise, free jazz, metal, ambient, and bombastic 80s-inspired pop. On Sediments We Move, Greve, backed by her band, Wood River, and Berlin choir Cantus Domus, invites listeners into a world where disparate sounds weave together like twine, melding into one beautiful, cohesive flow.
Though Greve is a graduate of Jazz Institute Berlin and New York University Steinhardt, the composer frequently abandoned academic form during the creative process. Waves of inspiration overcame Greve, who then recorded her ideas on a whim—singing and talking and clapping into her phone. But perhaps the most intriguing artifact from Sediments We Move is the series of scrawls and drawings and mind maps Greve created along the way.
“I would describe this work as an image of myself, turned inside out, completely vulnerable and bare, out in the open,” says Charlotte Greve. “All my influences are here, interwoven together unapologetically. This is a genre-fluid piece. Listeners are invited to open their ears, to hear assorted sounds uniting, to conceive Sediments We Move as one.”
Sediments We Move is imbued with this theme of connectivity. “This album has many different moments and phases, kind of like our lives,” says Greve. “We all go through different moments, different phases, though we don’t always see their interconnectedness.”
After speaking with her grandmother, Greve began to clearly see the similarities between her relatives—habits and influences, traits and oddities passed through time. Fittingly, then, Greve’s older brother, Julius Greve, wrote lyrics for Sediments We Move, blending familial ties with nature imagery, expanding the circle beyond the Greve family—one layer fading into the next, until all is one.
“I felt an urgency to compose a large-scale piece,” says Greve. “I had never written for choir before, or ever since, and it was a lot of trial and error. But the sound of many voices coalescing with a beat-driven band was extremely appealing.”
In addition to her two ECHO Jazz prizes, Greve has won both the Jazz Baltica Award and a Praetorius-Musikpreis. For over a decade, the composer has toured across Europe, South Asia, and the United States, playing festivals from Jazz Baltica to Jazzfest Berlin to Haldern Pop to Jazzfest Kolkata, collaborating with New Amsterdam artist Arooj Aftab, dancer Isabel Umali, drummer Vinnie Sperrazza, pianist Marta Sanchez, and songwriter Grey McMurray.
Since 2014, Greve has been leading the Brooklyn-based band Wood River, and on Sediments We Move, the indie-art-pop quartet of Greve, Jim Black, Simon Jermyn, and Keisuke Matsuno merges with Cantus Domus, a Berlin choir conducted by Ralf Sochaczewsky. Martin Offik recorded both Wood River and Cantus Domus, helping engineer Greve’s most ambitious work to date.
Like plunging a bottle into the ocean, then swirling the sand and silt and water together, Sediments We Move mixes Charlotte Greve’s myriad influences—both as a composer and a human.
Album Credits
Composer: Charlotte Greve
Lyricist: Julius Greve
Performers
Wood River & Cantus Domus
Wood River
Charlotte Greve — Voice / Saxophone / Synthesizers
Keisuke Matsuno — Guitar
Simon Jermyn — Bass
Jim Black— Drums
Cantus Domus
Conductor — Ralf Sochaczewsky
Producers: Charlotte Greve, Cantus Domus, Martin Offik
Recording Engineers: Martin Offik, Michael Coleman
Mixing Engineer: Seth Manchester
Mastering Engineer: Zach Hanson
Album Artwork: Tracy Maurice
Recorded at:
Audio Cue, Berlin
Traumton Studios, Berlin
Figure 8, Brooklyn, NY
Charlotte’s Bedroom, Brooklyn, NY
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