Aaron Jensen joins me to discuss Countermeasure’s ‘Guest Sessions Vol II’

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, where I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

This was a delightful conversation with Countermeasure’s Aaron Jensen, on the recent release of their fifth studio album, Guest Sessions Vol II.

This is our second episode, following our original chat in August 2024.

Thanks to Aaron for allowing me to play extracts from Guest Sessions vol II alongside our conversation.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

Hilary 0:25

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World. My name is Hilary Seabrook, and for this episode I am delighted to be joined by Aaron Jensen from Countermeasure. And I've spoken to him before. All the links are in the show notes to our previous conversation. What you are listening to right now is What's the Rush from Countermeasure's new album, Guest Sessions Volume 2. And I'm really looking forward to chatting with Aaron about it.

Aaron 1:10

Hey, how are you doing today?

Hilary 1:12

I'm good, thanks, Aaron. How are you?

Aaron 1:15

I'm wonderful, thank you very much.

Hilary 1:17

Excellent. Well, it's good to talk to you again. The first time was a couple of years ago.

Aaron 1:20

Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Orchestral sessions.

Hilary 1:23

Exactly. Absolutely. So this is a very different beast.

Aaron 1:27

It is. It is indeed.

Hilary 1:29

And I'm really looking forward to talking to you more about it. So it's called Guest Sessions Volume 2 for a very good reason, because there's some amazing guests on this album.

Aaron 1:42

Yeah, absolutely.

Hilary 1:44

Uh do you want to start by giving us a quick uh introduction to Countermeasure? Because anybody who hasn't heard our previous conversation won't know who you are. And then we can talk about the album.

Aaron 1:56

Yeah, sure, absolutely. So Countermeasure is a 12-voice ensemble based out of Toronto, Canada. We have been around for 16 years. We have toured all around the world. This is our fifth recording that we've worked on together. And we really um pride ourselves on performing almost exclusively original materials and get really excited about collaboration, which this project is all about.

Hilary 2:24

Yeah, brilliant. And it really is. I mean, the list of people you've got on uh on this guest sessions is really quite spectacular, isn't it?

Aaron 2:34

Yeah, absolutely.

Hilary 2:35

And this is all tracks that you've written.

Aaron 2:38

That's correct. Yep.

Hilary 2:39

Right. So when did you write them?

Aaron 2:42

Uh they range. Some of the pieces have actually been in our repertoire for some number of years. Uh Never Been Better, which we performed with Leo P. I think we first performed that as a solely a cappella piece six, seven years ago, maybe. Um, whereas other pieces were developed in the studio as part of this project um within the last within the last year.

Hilary 3:04

Ah, right. So some are specifically for this out. Most are. Yes, most of them are. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um, so do you want to run through who some of the guests are that you've got?

Aaron 3:19

Yeah, there's there's a huge range. So on the more on the pop end of the spectrum, we've got Clyde Lawrence on Keys, who people will know from the band Lawrence, Leo P, who you know from Too Many Zoos, or his collaborations with Beyoncé, Braylon Lacey, who I grew up listening to playing with Erika Badu. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we've got um Saskia Tompkins on Nickelharpa, which is a 14th-century Swedish instrument. Uh, Gorkham Sen, a Turkish composer-performer, who plays the instrument that he created himself called the Ye Bahar, which you may not know as an instrument, but you've almost certainly heard it on Hans Zimmer or Max Richter albums. On the more classical end of things, uh, we worked with Angela Schwartzkopf, who won the 2020 Juno Award for Best Classical Album. Uh, Dylan Hart, French horn player from the States. Uh, so it's really, it's really quite a range, quite a range of sounds and genres and instruments.

Hilary 4:20

Yeah, and indeed, this album takes us everywhere, doesn't it? It takes us all over the place in terms of uh the genre.

Aaron 4:28

Absolutely. It it was my intention to like with with the past album, so this is volume two of guest sessions. So there has been a volume one, which was the same concept of taking 10 pieces of original music and tailor-making them to the guest instrumentalist. So really trying to um play to the not only just the sound and the aesthetics of the artist, but also their collaboration process. So in some cases there were co-writes, in other cases there was improvisation in the studio. Um and then also taking that and mapping that onto the singers within the group who, in many cases, I've been working with for 16 years. So I'm writing for very specific voices and also writing lyrics that are in many cases inspired by real life shared experiences or major life events within the lives of the members of the group.

Hilary 5:21

Yeah, and it it does feel like it's a very much a countermeasure album. It does feel like it's you know from you and from your colleagues in the uh ensemble.

Aaron 5:33

Yeah, absolutely.

Hilary 5:34

Yeah. Uh so one of the pieces that I really liked was Give Up.

Aaron 5:41

Oh yes.

Hilary 5:42

So this has got and fun, is it, on flute?

Aaron 5:46

Absolutely, yeah.

Hilary 5:47

Right, so before we start, I'd like a little I'm gonna play a little clip of that.

Aaron 5:52

Great.

Hilary 7:37

It's a short one. So did you write that specifically for that soloist?

Aaron 7:42

I did. I wrote this piece with uh flute in mind and with Anne in mind specifically. And as is the case with many of the guests who are on this album, one of the members of the group has come forward and saying, like, this is the artist that I'm really excited about. And one of our group members had just seen her live, and I looked her up and was completely blown away by her uh virtuosity and musicianship.

Hilary 8:05

Yeah, it's a and it's a lovely, lovely track, and she just performs it brilliantly.

Aaron 8:12

Well, and there's something kind of uh something that pleases me about uh a piece that is an inspirational tune called Give Up.

Hilary 8:20

So Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that I'm interested in is when you perform live, you obviously won't have all of these guests. So how are you I how are you planning to incorporate some of these tracks into your uh performances?

Aaron 8:38

We already have I believe seven out of ten of the songs in our regular repertoire. And so in some cases, that means the singers themselves occupying the roles that would have been played by the instruments, in other cases the arrangement has has shifted quite a bit just to be voices alone. In some cases, the song started off as an original piece. Into the air, the the song for um just the treble voices of the group with uh Nickelharpa was just a vocal piece. And so if anything, the challenge was taking a song that was quite complete and then layering uh layering in another instrument in a way that felt meaningful.

Hilary 9:16

Yeah, so I guess when people come to your concerts, they will experience the music and then they can take the album away and hear it in a in a slightly different context.

Aaron 9:28

Yeah, absolutely.

Hilary 9:29

Which is actually quite often true anyway, because quite often uh it's not the same musicians playing on a gig that are on the album, you know, just in a normal sort of quartet or or uh quintet.

Aaron 9:42

Well, and there's almost a sleight of hand trick that if we're playing for audiences who know an album, they're filling in the blanks in their minds. If they're if they know a recording very well and we perform it, they're hearing some of the layers that we're not even necessarily performing live.

Hilary 9:55

Right. Absolutely. Um so uh there's a lot of there's a lot of award winning going on, isn't there, with these guests?

Aaron 10:02

I mean, these are yes indeed.

Hilary 10:04

So are you hoping that some of that will rub off on countermeasure that this because it sounds to me like a contender for some of these awards.

Aaron 10:13

Well, you know what? Uh obviously we wouldn't say no. It's always nice to get recognition, but to be honest, the process of creating this album has been such a joy. It has been such a beautiful experience, a beautiful collaborative experience that for me, what is most rewarding is the process itself. And so being able to spend that time like the fellow who mixed the album is one of my dearest friends, Kai Koshmeter, and we've been making records together for 18 years. And so it's just like this made major family experience. And so if anything comes of it beyond people just listening to it and hopefully enjoying it, then that's great. But um, I already feel very satisfied with the the reception and the the product that we have in hand.

Hilary 10:58

That's brilliant, and and I think actually that um you know producing music for the sake of producing music rather than for any sort of award is is much better than uh you know than sort of aiming for that. Yeah, brilliant. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you about this album. It's a it's a lovely, lovely album, and I'm gonna recommend people check it out.

Aaron 11:24

Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time.

Hilary 11:39

Thank you for joining me for that episode of Harmonious World, and you definitely have to check out my August 2024 episode with Aaron Jensen to get a full sense of what countermeasure is all about. But they're an amazing group of you know 12 vocalists who are really skilled at what they do. What you're listening to now is one more spin, and that includes Braylon Lacey. And Braylon is somebody you may have heard playing bass with Erica Padu, who, you know, I mean, this is at the top of the field. But thank you for joining me for Harmonious World, and I hope you have a very, very good week.