2014 | Instrumental Album of the Year | Esmerine | | The JUNO Awards

Esmerine's new album Dalmak emphatically confirms that the group has indeed continued writing, exploring and collaborating. Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) appears alongside co-founder and cellist Rebecca Foon (Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire To Flames); with percussionist Jamie Thompson (Unicorns, Islands) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson. European tours in 2011-2012 took Esmerine to Istanbul, where the group's enthusiastic reception led to an invitation for an artist residency. The majority of Dalmak was recorded in Istanbul, where the band was joined by Turkish guest players: Hakan Vreskala, Baran A??k, Ali Kazim Akda?, James Hakan Dedeo?lu on various instruments. Dalmak is a Turkish verb with many connotations: to contemplate, to dive into, to bathe in, to plummet. Esmerine presents some of its most richly minimal and intimate music alongside what is surely its most explosive, energized and ornate. Dalmak is a tour-de-force of cross-cultural music-making, emotive but unsentimental, deeply textured and detailed, guided throughout by DIY rock, new folk and modern classical/contemporary sensibilities. The album’s gorgeously saturated warmth and pulsing grit was achieved courtesy of Breakglass head engineer Jace Lasek (Wolf Parade, The Besnard Lakes, Suuns) and Ian Ilavsky, who mixed the album alongside Beckie and Bruce.