As stated on the IAA website, “Full Circle is Matthew Lien’s 25th self-titled album. It was recorded over 7 years in 6 countries and 18 locations, with 52 musicians, 8 engineers; and with binaural directional impulse responses (digital acoustic fingerprints) captured in 22 chapels, cathedrals, caves and caverns across North America, Europe and Asia — entirely in the native binaural format. THIS IS NOT SIMULATED BINAURAL DERIVED FROM OTHER FORMATS. The album breaks new ground for earphone listening, pioneering the use of native binaural technology, which has been praised by music industry luminaries including Elliot Scheiner and Tchad Blake.”

Use the link below to find Full Circle, available as a high-resolution download in the lossless WAV format.

Quite a lot, if you’re talking about an epic 13-minute music film being released by musicians Diyet van Lieshout and Matthew Lien.

The film features original music by Diyet and Lien, and a grand piano which was airlifted into Kluane National Park and Reserve in Canada’s Yukon Territory – home to Canada’s highest mountains. The two musicians were the recipients of a $125,000 grant from the Yukon government for their Kluane Compositions film, one of three projects funded to celebrate the territory’s 125th anniversary.

The Yukon 125 Prize was an initiative by the Yukon government’s Department of Tourism to “inspire the next generation of Yukoners to be bold and creative and to entice others to experience the magic of this place,” according to the government’s news release. 93 proposals were adjudicated by a selection committee “comprising a range of community members from across the territory.” The Kluane Compositions received the grand prize which contributed the bulk of funding for the film.

Lien conceived the idea forty years ago, to create a song for Kluane National Park where he grew up, and then airlift a grand piano into the park for a music video, “I recorded the song, Kluane, but I was too young and inexperienced really pull the whole thing off,” says Lien. “And I’m glad I waited.”

In collaboration with Diyet, a member of the Kluane First Nation, the original idea was expanded to feature three movements for the three distinct ecosystems of Kluane Park, and dual story lines about the splendour of water and ice from the perspective of an observer (Lien), and the spirit of the Land (Diyet).

“I see The Kluane Compositions not only as creating art in a beautiful environment, but also as an act of rebellion, of assertion, of relationship and of reconciliation,” says Diyet. “It is meant to challenge the concept of colonization and ownership. It is meant to bring awareness to our rapidly changing environment. It is meant to bring understanding that our language and people have a rightful place in Kluane and create a bold statement that we have a serious and immediate responsibility to care for ‘Ásì Keyi’ as if it were everyone’s grandfather.”

To achieve their vision, a grand piano needed to be airlifted by helicopter into ice fields near the Yukon/Alaska border, the glacial fore-fields, and the lush front ranges of the Park.

The project seems to have captured the imagination of the public. “Everyone’s been so supportive,” says Lien. “Each time someone stops me on the street and excitedly asks about it, I know it’s been worth the effort.”

The Kluane Compositions premiered on May 27^th at the Yukon Visitor Information Centre in Whitehorse, and will be showing at film festivals worldwide. Watching this website for updates.

Seven years in the making, Full Circle features many of Lien’s trademark characteristics spanning acoustic styles from folk to pop wrapped up in environmental soundscapes, and all of it has been produced in Lien’s new award-winning immersive format developed especially for earphones.

“When I first started recording in the 1980s, headphones were rarely used,” Lien said. “But with the proliferation of smartphones, they’re everywhere!”

From his earliest recordings, Lien was interested in expanding the boundaries of how sound is perceived. Many of his productions employed the Roland RSS or Desper Pro-Spatializer systems (used by Sting, Deep Forest, Roger Waters and others) to expand the stereo soundfield. In 2005, he received support from the National Research Council to expand the perception of 5.1 surround sound, while working with Sony engineer Lon Neumann at Bryan Adams’ Warehouse Studio.

Matthew Lien with Neumann ku100 binaural microphone.

But it was his first experience with binaural sound that raised the bar. One fateful morning, his recording engineer Michael Harris brought a DIY binaural microphone into the recording studio. It looked like a beat-up mannequin head with rubbery ears and wires underneath. Harris played a recording of himself walking around the studio while talking and shaking his car keys. “Listening on headphones with my eyes closed, I thought nothing of it because it sounded so realistic, until I opened my eyes and Mike wasn’t in the room,” Lien exclaimed. “I couldn’t believe it had been recorded, and I realized this microphone was essentially a periscope for the ears, able to put someone aurally into any space.”

With a loan from his father, he purchased the holy grail of binaural microphones – the Neumann KU100 – and started experimenting. The biggest challenge he discovered which had vexed others attempting and abandoning the binaural format for mainstream music production, was the matter of reverb (the smooth echo you hear in churches, for example).

Most studio music is recorded in layers, so that each instrument can be treated uniquely for tone, position, dynamics, and the sense of space it occupies. That space is usually applied with artificial reverb, so vocalists can sound like they’re in a chapel while a piano can seem to be in a small room.

When artificial reverb is applied to binaural recordings, it causes the immersive quality of the recording to collapse. So, Lien started experimenting with another type of reverb called convolution reverb. This involved recording a special tone within an acoustically pleasing space and using the binaural microphone to capture a digital fingerprint of the space (called an impulse response). His use of a binaural microphone, and broadcasting that tone in 45-degree angles, was his breakthrough.

He then travelled Canada, Europe and southeast Asia to capture impulse responses in many historically significant spaces which, he realized, impart immersive spatial qualities onto the instruments while also contributing cultural qualities to his songs, since the spaces he would later apply to his recordings may include the Marble Hall of the St. Florian Basilica or St. Martin’s Church which, built in 1668, is the oldest Christian church in the English speaking world. “I’d become an acoustic archaeologist,” Lien observed.

While most songs on Full Circle are personal compositions from Lien’s life and travels over four decades, the album has two cover songs recorded as tributes to those he’s lost. Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was re-imagined by Lien for his father who passed away while Lien was in the studio. “He often requested k.d. lang’s version in the hospital,” Lien said. “I promised to develop my take on the song, but he passed away before he could hear it.”

The other tribute is for his friend and the bassist on many of Lien’s albums and tours, Paul Stephens. “When Paul received a tragic diagnosis with only months to live, I called him and asked if he wanted to record one last song,” Lien recalls. I’m Gonna Pray was composed by Paul Gatien and Leah DeForrest, close friends that Lien and Stephens had in common. The recording became an international undertaking involving eighteen musicians in six studios with seven engineers in the Yukon, BC and California. The day after the final mixing session, Stephens and his wife Maureen returned home to Canada where he passed away days later. “The project served as a beautiful way for many friends to say goodbye, and it filled Paul’s final months with what he loved most in life,” Lien said.

Overall, Full Circle was curated from forty years of songwriting, and recorded in six countries and eighteen locations, with fifty-two musicians, eight engineers and four foley artists; and with binaural impulse responses (digital acoustic fingerprints) captured in twenty-two chapels, cathedrals, caves and caverns across North America, Europe and Asia. All of this – including the 22 acoustic spaces – was recorded in the binaural format with the KU-100 microphone crafted by Neumann, the renowned manufacturer of high-end studio microphones.

The album was mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Michael Romanowski. “When I heard of Michael and his award-winning work on immersive projects, I asked if he thought he could improve on the music, a challenge he thankfully accepted and he’s elevated the immersive quality significantly,” Lien said.

Full Circle is released under a new distribution deal secured with Interstellar Music who represents artists like Taylor Swift and Jackie Chan in southeast Asia, and who’ve just re-released fifteen of Lien’s previous titles. Full Circle is now streaming on all major platforms, so get your earphones on.

Check the Full Circle album page on this website (under Discography), and to find links to streaming platforms.

For more information, please contact:

Eric Alper
Publicist
647-971-3742

Eric@ThatEricAlper.com

Jugraj Thandi

It was a first for me, the work in the language, and I fell in love with the unique pronunciations (to my ears, anyway), and the way Jugraj landed his syllables on the beat.

I highly encourage everyone to give it a listen. I’m certain this artist will be someone to watch.

Matthew Lien and Diyet win the Yukon 125 Prize.

Yukon musician gets $125K to fly grand piano deep into Kluane park for video shoot

Musician Matthew Lien says he first had the idea about 40 years ago: Could he airlift a grand piano into the remote mountains of Yukon’s Kluane National Park to film an epic music video?

Decades later, the answer appears to be yes — thanks to a $125,000 grant from the Yukon government to help Lien and his collaborators make it happen this summer.

The project is one of three that will receive funding this year as part of a one-time initiative to mark the territory’s 125th anniversary. The 125 Prize is meant to “inspire the next generation of Yukoners to be bold and creative and to entice others to experience the magic of this place,” according to a government news release.

The tourism department received 93 pitches for prize money, and a selection committee “comprising a range of community members from across the territory” settled on the three winning projects, announced this week.

Lien’s pitch received the biggest chunk of money.

“I feel, you know, really excited,” said Lien on Tuesday.

“Luckily I’ve found a beautiful full-size grand Heintzman piano that’s going to be used for this and it’s in beautiful condition, nice and shiny, and it’s just going to be awesome up there.”

The plan is for Lien, in collaboration with fellow Yukon musician Diyet, to create an original composition in three movements, each representing a different aspect of the vast park’s ecosystem. That will happen in the next few months, and then in July, they’ll aim to film the video in three representative locations within the park.

“Most of the music will be recorded in the studio, but there’s no way I’m going to put a piano onto the icefield and not play that thing, you know?” Lien said.

The plan is also to film the whole process throughout the coming months, and the challenges Lien’s team faces as they work to pull it off, and ultimately get that piano into some remote and dramatic places.

“Weather is definitely an issue. But there’s so many challenges involved with this, all of which I’m sure we’ll overcome,” he said.

“It just feels sometimes in life you can feel that there’s a script that the universe is preparing for you, and failure in this script, I don’t see it as an option … it’s really a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

©2024 CBC/Radio-Canada. All rights reserved.

As your hosts in the brand-new podcast series The Binaural Cafe, Matthew Lien, Todd Hooge, and Paul Gatien invite you to explore field recordings Matthew has captured around the world, ranging from hidden underground bunkers in Scotland to bat caves in China, a deep-sea volcano in the South Pacific to a horse race in Mongolia — all in immersive sound for earphones.

The Binaural cafe is available on all popular podcast platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Google Podcasts, etc.), and on YouTube. Matthew, Todd, and Paul gratefully acknowledge the support of the Yukon Government, and Audio Ease Altiverb in providing support for this podcast.

Taiwan’s government has published a 90-minute documentary introducing Taiwan to the international community. The documentary was supported by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, which had appointed Yukon musician Matthew Lien as Cultural Ambassador several years earlier.

The Sound From Taiwan: Celebrating Taiwan’s World Music Soundscape was filmed in some of the most remote locations in Taiwan, and is billed as “the world music event of the year.” The documentary centres on Lien’s concert held earlier this year in Taitung County overlooking the Pacific Ocean, an event which celebrated Lien’s 25th anniversary of creating music in Taiwan.

Performances include some of Taiwan’s most iconic traditional musicians, along with Yukon musicians Alana Martinson (fiddle, vocals) and Elijah Bekk (electric and acoustic guitars) to help Lien present his trademark world-fusion style. Lien became the first foreigner to win southeast Asia’s Grammy-equivalent.

Taiwan is home to Hakka, Hokkien and several distinct Indigenous cultures, and each community contributes something different to the island’s musical soundscape. Despite cultural differences, these diverse ethnic groups live harmoniously in Taiwan and continue to pass down their traditions from generation to generation. To this point, the documentary includes conversations and performances with local musicians and artists who share the histories and meanings underlying their vibrant traditions.

“I’m thrilled that my music can serve as a portal to introduce Taiwan to the world,” said Lien. “I don’t know of anyplace with such a high density of cultural and ecological diversity, and I never seem to run out of inspiration.”

The documentary can be viewed at TaiwanPlus.com and via the iOS and Android TaiwanPlus app.

In keeping with the entire album’s production, the session was recorded in native binaural, at Sonic Forest Studios in Metchosin, BC, known for their Dolby Atmos abilities.

The song which features the baroque ensemble, also features astounding vocal performances by counter-tenor Alois Muhlbacher recorded at Castle Schloss Weinberg in Upper Austria.

“I’m thrilled at the results, especially hearing Alois with the baroque performances together at last,” says Matthew, listening to playback following the tracking session engineered by Todd Hooge. “I just can’t wait to share this with people.”

Stay tuned for more updates as the album nears release.

Lien invited two Yukon musicians – Alana Martinson (fiddle, vocals) and Elijah Bekk (electric and acoustic guitars) – to perform with his Taiwan-based ensemble, and his recording engineer Todd Hooge from Vancouver Island. Lien’s ensemble includes traditional Taiwan instruments such as bamboo flutes, suona (a traditional double reed instrument), and the erhu (Chinese violin), which interact with the western instruments in the group, in a crossover music style that has garnered several awards.

In addition to Taiwan’s traditional music, the Canadian contingent were exposed to traditional foods such as curdled duck blood, thousand year old eggs (said to be marinated in horse urine), and fermented “stinky tofu” which sent one of the musicians running from the pungent odour in Taipei’s Raohe night market.

Because the concert will be featured in a documentary, a scenic outdoor venue was chosen on Taiwan’s rugged eastern coast. “The remote location, literally as far as you can get from the populous western side of the island, created logistical challenges,” said Lien. “We hoped for a few hundred people to attend which is enough for the cameras; but we wound up filling the grounds despite a landslide that closed main road to the area.”

The closure of the Suhua Highway etched into rugged cliffs overlooking the Pacific, had occurred just two days before the concert, causing revellers to travel up to 12 hours.

Lien is also hosting the documentary, to be released by his agency New Vision later this year on the Taiwan Plus platform. Lien is the appointed Cultural Ambassador to the government of Taiwan and has won the region’s Grammy-equivalant for blending traditional music with his own styles.