SAMUEL ANDREYEV • THE TUBULAR WEST
An album with a shape and a direction all its own

The music of SAMUEL ANDREYEV is...
HAUNTING (New York Times) • MARVELLOUS (Van Dyke Parks) • STRIKINGLY ORIGINAL (The Wire) • A DREAMTIME DELIRIUM (The Globe & Mail) • INTRIGUING (CBC Radio) • GORGEOUS (CKLN Radio)

Samuel Andreyev’s new album The Tubular West is the culmination of eighteen years of “musical adventure”—a description given by Van Dyke Parks to Andreyev’s 2000 recording Swollows, but which could suitably apply to his entire output, from inventive solo song cycles recorded in living rooms and garages, to avant-garde modern classical compositions commissioned and performed by some of Europe’s most acclaimed ensembles. With The Tubular West, Andreyev reasserts his unique pop sensibility without compromising any of the qualities that have established him as one of the world’s most significant young composers. In fact, this distinctive new recording lies at the intersection of the two main paths of his musical career.

Recorded at Melodium Studio in Montreuil, France, The Tubular West features outstanding performances by virtuoso musicians such as Ayako Okubo and brothers Olivier and Léo Maurel (the latter of whom invented several of the instruments that helped to define the album’s beguiling textures). Samuel is as much a multi-instrumentalist as ever, playing a range of instruments from heckelphone to synth and stylophone to piano, but with the live-in-the-studio approach established for the ­Tubular West sessions, his arrangements and performances are charged with a vibrant new energy. The synergy among Samuel and his dedicated musical collaborators was expertly captured by visionary engineer Nicolas Dufournet, whose techniques achieved the ideal meld of analogue and digital, vintage and cutting edge. Add to all this the fact that these new songs and instrumentals are easily Samuel’s most exceptional to date and the result is a work so original and compelling that it’s sure to further establish him as one of the most extraordinary artists in modern music.

Befitting the uniqueness of the music, The Tubular West is being released in a customized CD package designed to
inaugurate the new incarnation of Torpor Vigil Records. The gatefold design evokes the more decadent days of vinyl while making the most of the formal opportunities afforded by the newer medium, such as a photo-rich twelve-page booklet with complete lyrics. The mixing and mastering also exploit the potential of the CD/digital format, with fifty-two minutes of broad-frequency sound without compromise to the dynamic range. The album is, of course, also available for download.

Artist Bio:
Samuel Andreyev was born in Kincardine, Ontario in 1981. Prior to settling in France in 2003, he spent fifteen years in Toronto, where he studied at the Royal Conservatory and recorded his first eight albums of songs. After continuing his composition studies with Allain Gaussin, he entered the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), where he obtained both bachelor and master degrees in composition in the class of Frédéric Durieux, as well as a prix d'analyse supérieure in the class of Claude Ledoux. Following that, he spent a year in the Cursus for electro-acoustic music at IRCAM. He has also studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Heinz Holliger, Michael Jarrell, Klaus Huber and Rebecca Saunders. In 2012, he was awarded the first prize of the Henri Dutilleux competition, and was named a member of the Académie de France à Madrid, living at the Casa de Velázquez through 2013. He has received numerous commissions from groups and institutions including Radio France, Ensemble Proton (Bern), the Archipel Festival (Geneva), and Le Balcon (Paris). Also a poet, his first major collection, Evidence, was published by Quattro Books (Toronto) in 2009. Samuel Andreyev’s music is regularly performed throughout the world, and is published by Alphonse Leduc and Babel Scores.

About the label:
Torpor Vigil Records is an independent label based in Toronto, Canada, dedicated to releasing superb editions of remarkable audio works. With the release of The Tubular West, TVR begins a new phase of activity that will include future recordings by Samuel Andreyev and new compilations of somniloquies by legendary sleeptalker Dion McGregor.