CD Review | Alfredo Santa Ana Before the World Sleeps

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Before the World Sleeps

Alfredo Santa Ana, composer; Miranda Wong, piano

Redshift Records, 2024

Before the World Sleeps is a direct result of the current tensions in the world surrounding politics, the climate crisis, and technology. Mexican-Canadian composer Alfredo Santa Ana’s artistic response to this instability was “to reorient the compositional process toward creating small pieces of music that (he) could finish quickly, and using an archiver’s mindset, commit them to a recording rather than prepare them for public performance.” The pieces on this album are varied, technically demanding, and are a manifestation of a world caught between the peaceful and the unsettled.

Miranda Wong is the featured pianist, and she offers the confidence and meticulousness necessary to execute Santa Ana’s complex compositions. Although some of the album’s selections seem simple at first—especially those “small pieces of music” on Tracks 9 through 12—Before the World Sleeps demands precision from the performer in the same way a short story requires the writer to put more intention behind each word.

The title of each track inspires introspection. A New Culture of Nostalgia, in particular, piqued my interest with its specific and relevant address to the rise of nostalgia in younger generations. This piece feels like fading into a memory with its soothing piano runs, allowing listeners to retreat into their minds with ease. Its smooth sound is in direct contrast with the tracks immediately before, Castle Keep and Two Worlds, which tend to make the listener uneasy with their insistent use of the piano’s upper register. 

My one critique of the album is that its focus (i.e. the future of humanity) may be too broad. Santa Ana demonstrates the expansiveness of his imagination and composition, but this range of sounds can be a double-edged sword. Some pieces are beyond successful at conveying the unique feelings of the present moment, such as Prayer to a Vanishing Sun and Snow Dirge, which work together to express concern for the climate crisis. 

However, the album feels disconnected at times because of the sheer number of topics it aims to address, each with their own needs in terms of intensity and hopeful/lessness. By breaking the album into smaller chapters, Santa Ana ensures a certain collectiveness between the songs in those sections. That being said, narrowing the theme to focus solely on the climate crisis, for example, would offer more space to dig deeper into the specific feelings of a topic and present a more cohesive collection.

This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en: Francais (French)