Deep Sea Vents (album)

Release date

March 1 2024

BrhyM is a collaboration between Bruce Hornsby and chamber ensemble yMusic. “Deep Sea Vents” was released in March 2024.

Track listing

1. The Wild Whaling Life
2. (My) Theory of Everything
3. Platypus Wow
4. Phase Change
5. Foreign Sounds
6. The Wake of St Brendan
7. Deep Blue
8. The Baited Line
9. Barber Booty
10. Deep Sea Vents

Personnel

Bruce Hornsby (piano, dulcimer, bass, electric sitar, vocals), Alex Sopp (flute, piccolo, vocals), Hideaki Aomori (clarinet), C.J. Camerieri (trumpet, flugelhorn), Rob Moose (violin), Nadia Sirota (viola), Gabriel Cabezas (cello), Branford Marsalis (soprano sax), Mark Dover (clarinet), Chad Wright (drums)

Audio clips

Fan reaction

You all had your vote on the record – and Deep Sea Vents s the highest ranked record since Absolute Zero, and scores higher than any other record to date on the album art and liner notes. The image, once again, is Bruce’s wife Kathy Hornsby’s gorgeous photography.

Your top voted track was the opener: Wild Whaling Life, which is the second highest scoring track of the last three records. (“Never in This House” beats it).

Deep Sea Vents reviews

Uncut: “It’s unlikely anyone will hear anything much stranger this year than BrhyM’s “Platypus Wow”. “Got webbed feet, rubber bill, fat-ass tail, furry chill,” a multi-tracked Bruce Hornsby mumbles to a peculiar accompaniment of squawking, cawing woodwind, adding “dark purple-green coloured fur/I’ll stick that ass with my poison spur.” Soon he’s quasi-rapping, joined by mournful strings, unpredictable piano runs and doo-wop harmonies, before concluding, “I light up the world, only for you.” The sentiment might sound Disneyesque, but Disney this is not.”

AllMusic: This latest album is erudite music indeed, but it’s obvious that he is enjoying what he is doing. He’s making music for himself (and other musical thinkers). It’s eccentric, engrossing and deeply rewarding listening.Bruce Hornsby has had a quite a journey; his well-deserved hits from the 80s and his stunning piano playing come to mind. For most (including me) that’s where it ended.

It makes sense though, he has a degree in Music and those composers were well known as being ‘avante garde’ in their day. If one applies a ‘trained ear’ to the recent music of Hornsby, it all makes sense. This music is hard to categorize: it’s modern classical (beautifully played by yMusic, and Brantford Marsalis), it’s pop-influenced, it has jazz inflections. There’s even a whiff of country at times.

Overall, it’s an intriguing synthesis that is the unique musical genius of Bruce Hornsby. This latest album is erudite music indeed, but it’s obvious that he is enjoying what he is doing. He’s making music for himself (and other musical thinkers). It’s eccentric, engrossing and deeply rewarding listening. – John Smithson

Stage and Cinema: “Distinctive, harmonic, inventive, playful, and wholly accessible with astounding orchestrations and fun vocals, the album contains 10 songs about water and the ways we live with, in, or against it, Deep Sea Vents is Hornsby and yMusic as you have never heard them but also instantly identifiable in their own ways. Hornsby’s instant melodic ease joins their rhythmic precision and endless versatility, pulling each toward new currents”.

Berklee.edu: “It’s perhaps unsurprising to learn that an artist who’s been known to sneak bits of Bach’s Goldberg Variations into his most recognizable tune is just as likely to crib from Schoenberg as from Crash Bandicoot, but the example is striking. Fifty years after his time at Berklee, Hornsby continues to draw on the whole scope of his experience and curiosity when he sits down to make something new. It might be funny, it might be serious; there’s a good chance it could be both at once.”

“This has always been the lesson of Hornsby’s career: follow the sounds and ideas that light up your brain, don’t be held captive by others’ expectations, and just see what you can get away with.”

Purchase Deep Sea Vents

Amazon Deep Sea Vents purchase page (commission goes to Bruuuce.com)