Juliana Day

“Capillary Cycles”

(New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings NEWJAiM21)

Juliana Day – recorders, whistles, voice, live electronics

“Capillary Cycles” represents Juliana Day’s second release for Wesley Stephenson’s Newcastle based NEWJAiM imprint. It follows “lull”, released on the same label in October 2024, a recording that has somehow managed to slip through the Jazzmann’s reviewing net. My apologies to both Juliana and Wes for that, but at least I’m a bit more ‘on the ball’ for this latest offering, which first appeared in May 2025.

“lull” was a full length album containing seven tracks that featured Day on recorders, whistles and live electronics and which also included contributions from Manon McCoy (lever harp, vocals, live electronics) and Zebedee Budworth (hammered dulcimer).

Day’s latest release, “Capillary Cycles”, can perhaps best be regarded as an EP, something that is also reflected in its price, as it features just the twenty one minute title work, of which Day says;
“Captured live through a loop pedal and effects unit “Capillary Cycles” is an improvised, loosely structured work for recorders, voice and live electronics. Drawing inspiration from the vastness of sea and desert landscapes it delves into both the microscopic and the cosmic. The work explores the interplay between the internal and external, reflecting on the rhythms and systems within the body and their connections to the world around us”.

Budworth was involved with the recording in an engineering capacity and the recording was mixed and mastered by Adam Zejma, who fulfilled a similar role on “lull”.

Day describes her music as being influenced by “choral music, folk music, minimalism and artists such as Tim Hecker, Kali Malone, Steve Reich, Ichiko Aoba, William Basinski and Pauline Oliveros”.

Based in Sheffield Day also runs Emergence Collective, a group of some thirty musicians who play improvised music influenced by minimalism and also perform live improvised silent film scores.

Day studied at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where her tutors on the recorder included  Annabel Knight and Chris Orton. It was during this period that she developed her love of using the recorder as a contemporary instrument and began exploring extended recorder and whistle techniques, including
circular breathing,  multiphonics and simultaneous singing and playing. She concentrates on low register recorders and whistles and also adds vocalisations to her sound, which she loops and layers to produce ambient colours and textures.

Her skill and versatility has led to work in a broad variety of fields including television, theatre and film and a collaboration with the contemporary classical ensemble the Manchester Collective, who have also worked with the Scottish jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie.

Day is also an acclaimed educator and holds a master’s degree in Music Psychology from the University of Sheffield.

The solo project that forms the basis for both “lull” and “Capillary Cycles” was first commissioned by the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, of which the record label is a very welcome offshoot. Indeed the music that was recorded for “lull” was commissioned as the “interlude” music for the 2024 NEWJAiM Festival, the recording being played in the auditorium during the changeovers between acts.

“Capillary Cycles” is an absorbing listening experience that commences with the processed sounds of recorders and whistles, sounding vaguely like ship’s horns as they pass by on a foggy night, immediately evoking the seascapes of which Day speaks. Eerie wordless vocals and gentle rushes of breath add to the wispy atmospherics as the piece slowly begins to unfold, the gradual looping and layering resulting in a fuller sound that is sometimes unsettling, there’s a sense of being marooned in the vastness of the ocean or the emptiness of the desert. Eventually percussive sounds begin to intrude, some of them sounding like running water, but while the provenance of these remains unclear they do nothing to lighten the eerie atmosphere. Day’s recorders and whistles sometimes bring a folk like aspect to the music, somewhat akin to a Celtic air or lament, but as the piece progresses her ethereal layered wordless vocals take on a greater role in the music, her gentle exhalations of breath perhaps intended to be those “reflections on the rhythms and systems within the body and their connections to the world around us”.

At a little over twenty one minutes in duration the strangely beautiful “Capillary Cycles” is just the right length, long enough to be totally immersive and absorbing, short enough not to become boring or be in danger of outstaying its welcome. To a listener of a certain age first raised on prog rock it’s like one side of an album and reminds me of the ‘side long epics’ of my youth – Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, Van Der Graaf Generator’s “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers”, Caravan’s “Nine Feet Underground” etc., although of course it sounds totally different to any of those. That said even though the piece is improvised there does seem to be a sense of underlying structure and of an interior logic.

Although I haven’t written about “lull” I have heard it and personally find that ambient music of this nature is perhaps best appreciated in short doses, such as “Capillary Cycles”. I really enjoyed listening to this latest release and found myself totally drawn into Day’s soundworld for its twenty minutes or so duration, much as I was for those old prog rock epics. Over a full length album such as the fifty minute plus “lull” I did begin to find my attention wandering after a while so for me “Capillary Cycles” is my favourite Day recording thus far, although after hearing it I am tempted to go back and give “lull” another try.

Both recordings, plus the single 2022 track “the earth yearns for a storm” are available via the NEWJAiM Bandcamp page here;
https://newjazzandimprovisedmusicrecordings.bandcamp.com/

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