With Rain Beast, Harding encourages a deeper appreciation of the intersection between the things we’ve made and the things that make us.
Matt Carter
Making his Patient Records debut with Rain Beast, Charles Harding has stitched together a number of field recordings that pair the sounds of the natural world with the sounds of industry and manmade environments to explore the intersection between these two distinct and harmonious worlds.
Harding is a Fredericton musician and composer whose musical background taps everything from aggressive rock music to electro pop. A recent graduate of Concordia University’s Electroacoustic Studies Program, Harding’s new album was released during the 2022 Flourish Festival held recently in Fredericton.
As the title suggests, the sound of rain or running water is present across each of the album’s six tracks. When combined with numerous field recordings made by Harding between 2018 and 2021 as well as others by local artists Erin Goodine, Emily Kennedy, and Mark Kleyn, Rain Beast is a tapestry of sound and effort, and one that challenges the listener to consider their environment and appreciate the auditory nuances we so often overlook in our day to day existence. Through his work on this recording, Harding encourages a deeper appreciation of the intersection between the things we’ve made and the things that make us.
