Earth, Air, Water, Fire:
A Poetry Soundscape
By Paul Kane & Katie O’Looney

Digital Album with pdf booklet featuring liner notes by Paul Kane & Katie O’Looney, and paintings of internationally acclaimed artist John Wolseley


"As with any successful collaboration that straddles boundaries, there is symbiosis between Kane's verse and O'Looney's music, each being enhanced by the presence of the other...Kane has a gentle mellifluous voice that is easy on the ear, making extended exposure to it pleasurable. O'Looney employs a variety of struck and scraped percussion, plucked strings, and keyboards to generate abstract musical interjections that add emphasis and heighten atmosphere...leaves one hoping for a follow-up by the pair..."
(John Eyles, All About Jazz)

Katie O’Looney’s soundscapes for this album are environmental in impulse and inspiration: Earth is invoked by early morning birdsong; Air by the howling wind of a fierce storm; Water records torrents streaming down the road near her house as well as ocean waves near Fenit; while Fire uses the sounds of a bonfire in her garden. The hybrid Kora, in the Coda, provides unique instrumenting that is fitting for the Aether. Similarly, the paintings of John Wolseley suggest an energetic spontaneity appropriate to a layering improvisation.

Paul Kane’s ‘verse essays’ have been described as being ‘in the tradition of Lucretius, Pope, Auden and Ashbery’ for the way the poetry embraces ‘shifting points of view, including environmental, ecological, mythological, historical, and phenomenological perspectives’ (Antonella Reim and Tony Hughes D’Aeth, Ecosustainable Narratives, 2022). The verse, while ‘philosophically serious’, is also ‘at times, witty and ludic in tone.’Earth, Air, Water, Fire is an extended contemplation on not only the elements of our world—both outer and inner—but also on how that world is called into being and then lived most fully and skillfully. Drawing on the elementary forces that create our sense of who we are and where we are—in terms that harken back to ancient cultures but also arise from contemporary science—these recitations invite the listener to participate in a journey that wends its way through the intricate and challenging landscape of modern life, accompanied by soundscapes that illuminate the process.

A limited edition double CD version of Earth, Air, Water, Fire: A Poetry Soundscape is also available. The album artwork features the paintings of internationally acclaimed artist John Wolseley throughout.