Toronto-based drummer, composer and producer Robert Diack has announced the independent release of his second album as a bandleader, Small Bridges.
The new release follows Diack’s 2018 debut Lost Villages, a concept album that sonically details a series of townships lost to catastrophic flooding.
Small Bridges was written shortly after Diack’s arrival in New York to pursue further education at The New School. Diack’s compositions reflect on a period of isolation and challenges arising from his relocation from Canada to the U.S.
Diack, who participated in JAZZ.FM91’s Jazzology program in 2021, aims to broadly display the range of his body of work, blending a wide spectrum of genres including traditional and contemporary jazz, post-rock, electronic music and country.
Listen to Indigent below:
Small Bridges features Diack on drums and synthesizers as he leads a quartet comprising familiar collaborators: bassist Brandon Davis, pianist Jacob Thompson and guitarist Patrick O’Reilly.
Their collective sound is characterized by layers of guitar, intimate piano performances, and the ability to seamlessly weave through complex meters. Throughout the recording’s hour-long playtime, the group adapts dynamic peaks and valleys, directly referencing their post-rock influences synthesized with a jazz-based lens.
Diack continues to work as a session musician and producer and can be heard on a variety of jazz, pop and country records. The Toronto-based drummer is most recently credited on E3 and Alex Lauska’s Transmit Slow and Hannah Barstow’s 2021 debut Beneath. Not only that, but Diack is already in the process of composing his third album.
Here’s the track listing for Small Bridges:
- Hollow
- Plex
- Depth
- Quicken
- Houndstooth
- Indigent
- Sassafras
- Aler
- Vodemi
- Secede
- Loam
- Dissolver
- Laund
- Loesother
Robert Diack’s Small Bridges will be released Aug. 19, 2022.
