Mychael Danna & Tim Clément

Academy and Golden Globe award-winning composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi) and his life-long music partner Tim Clément release their new impeccably remixed and remastered classic masterpiece album

“NORTH OF NIAGARA”

Mychael Danna and Tim Clément began writing music together as teenagers in the mid-1970s. In 1982, these two Canadian composers from very different musical backgrounds quietly released a self-produced album entitled A Gradual Awakening. With this release, they single-handedly created a distinctly Canadian environmental music. The music that followed on the albums Summerland and Another Sun expanded this tradition. These albums are now coveted as “cult classics” by electronic and ambient music aficionados worldwide.

Tim Clément’s indigenous ancestral background from northern Québec is reflected in his numerous compositions portraying a deep connection to the land. Mychael Danna, trained as a classical musician, moved into environmental music after meeting Tim and contributed an air of formality rarely found in ambient and minimalist music. The duo has always held a strong belief that music has a profound effect on all aspects of ours lives – physical, emotional and spiritual. Initially released in 1995, Mychael and Tim agree that North of Niagara is their seminal work, a suite of twelve environmental music pieces inspired by locations along
Ontario’s Bruce Trail.

The Bruce Trail is Canada’s oldest and longest footpath with its stunning cliffs, caves, wetlands, beaches, and old-growth forests. It beings at Niagara Falls and follows the Niagara Escarpment, the edge of an ancient shallow sea, for 880 kilometres northward to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula. “We have spent much of our youth hiking along the Bruce Trail. It has always been a source of peace and inspiration just outside our suburban homes”. For this 25th anniversary, 2021 re-release, North of Niagara has been impeccably remixed and remastered from the original analog reel to reel tapes. The original digital piano parts have now been replayed on a 1983 Steinway B, even further enhancing the pastoral and ethereal nature of the music.

“I have known the music of Danna & Clément for some time and am very impressed with it. We need a music to provide alternatives to the harsh and vulgar realities of modern living. We need a quiet music, a spiritual music, a music that bonds us to the world of nature and that of the soul. The music of Danna & Clément speaks to these things, and it speaks persuasively. It is healthy, it is therapeutic, it is honest”. ~ R. Murray Schafer (Canadian composer)