Scions | To Cry Out In The Wilderness - Out Now
Selected press for "To Cry Out In The Wilderness"
"a rallying stand against climate disaster" - MOJO ★★★★
"Throughout the album's seven tracks, the communal element of folk music is imbued with the intensity of metal, the radical nature of the avant-garde and the hypnotic quality of drone." - Uncut ★★★½
"A beautiful choral waft of music." - Shindig! ★★★
"Utterly engaging and enrapturing." The Sleeping Shamen
Today, the avant-garde, genre-defying, Ontario collective Scions share their debut album To Cry Out In The Wilderness via Idée Fixe Records.
Listen to the album in full HERE
While hard to pin down to a single genre, Scions are anything but devoid of vision. To Cry Out In The Wilderness is a purposeful project, made with intent.
Bringing together the diverse talents of award-winning Canadian musicians, To Cry Out In The Wilderness masterfully weaves neoclassical elements with folk, jazz, drone, post-rock, and metal, creating an expansive, larger-than-life sonic landscape.
Driven by a profound sense of helplessness and anxiety over ecological collapse, the ensemble has crafted an album that channels these fears, embodying them sonically while offering catharsis. This process led to unexpectedly joyful moments that shape the album’s secondary theme: faith and community as enduring forces against looming catastrophe.
To Cry Out In The Wilderness is more than a musical expression - it’s a testament to the resilience it champions. The album was recorded with a custom-built, solar-powered portable studio affectionately named "The Scamper," created by recording engineer Jake Nicholl. Using entirely renewable energy, the ensemble recorded in the historic wooden St. George's Round Church in Halifax, transforming a place once ravaged by fire into a beacon of sustainable creation.
The choice of St. George's as a recording site was symbolic and deliberate. In 1994, the church suffered extensive damage after a fire set by children accidentally spread to its dome, destroying about 30% of the building and rendering it unusable. Over six years, the Halifax community came together to painstakingly rebuild the church, an act of resilience that mirrors the themes of the album. The haunting image of the church engulfed in flames now graces the album cover, a powerful symbol of both the destruction and rebirth at the heart of To Cry Out In The Wilderness.
Speaking on the record band leader Michael Cloud Duguay said,
"From its inception, Scions has been a project entrenched in hope, faith, and trust. It began as a panoramic vision for a personal creative future that relied on mutual support, camaraderie, and collaboration. My friends and I manifested this vision, piece by piece, with patience, love, and, ultimately, joy."
Bringing the album's poignancy to light, he continues, "In this, one of the most consequential weeks in the history of the modern world, we offer it as an idea, an example of hardwon authentic expression, resistance to cynicism, and patient collectivism. This album's themes of faith in the face of collapse and belief in a liveable future are universal but, in this moment, feel especially pertinent."
"Music and art often can and sometimes should be a safe harbour and a respite from the wanton evils of the world. Personally, it is the only tool I possess with which I am able to reject apathy in order to survive capitalism. Music has saved my life and it has kept me alive. My hope is that this work can be transmitted and received by others who seek this respite as a place to foster hope, faith, and trust before individually and collectively rejecting apathy and resisting evil."
To Cry Out In The Wilderness is out now and available to buy HERE
Full bio:
Scions are a new, innovative, experimental ensemble based between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
The group features members from the award-winning minimalist chamber-jazz quartet New Hermitage, the Polaris-nominated drone-hymn duo Joyful Joyful, and the acclaimed producer and composer Michael Cloud Duguay. Their collaboration began at the Sappyfest music festival in Sackville, New Brunswick, in August 2022. During this event, New Hermitage and Joyful Joyful connected for the first time and teamed up with Duguay for a spontaneous improvisational performance based on his songwriting. The enthusiastic response, capped by a standing ovation, solidified the ensemble's decision to pursue the project further, with Duguay deftly shifting from front-person to producer and musical director.
After being awarded a Canada Council project grant in early 2023 the group took residence in Hotel Wolfe Island on Wolfe Island. Over a week the seven core members lived and worked together, culling material from sunrise improv sessions and collaboratively shaping it into a unique body of work that would later become To Cry Out In The Wilderness.
In June 2023, the ensemble, now joined by double bassist Gabriella Ciurcovich, recorded their debut album in Halifax’s north end. Led by Duguay’s distinctive approach to site-specific production, the recording took place in the sanctuary of St. George’s Round Church, with engineering by Jake Nicoll, known for his sustainable recording methods using a solar-powered, mobile control room. The resulting album, To Cry Out In The Wilderness, finds the ensemble expertly exploring and powerfully combining their skills in jazz, devotional, classical, drone, folk, ambient, metal, improvisational, minimalist and avant-garde music.
The project culminated in a week of production, with contributions from numerous artists from Halifax’s creative music community. Scions then presented their work live, performing on the opening night of Halifax’s Everyseeker festival of experimental music, where they shared the spotlight with the renowned Sun Ra Arkestra.
Speaking on the narrative of To Cry Out In The Wilderness vocalist and lyricist Cormac Culkeen said: "When we came together to make this body of work, we started from a narrative seed; a post-apocalyptic humanity relearning and recreating itself, after a total ecological collapse."
Scions will return to St. George’s Round Church in Brunswick where To Cry Out In The Wilderness was recorded on November 20th, to play the album in full to a live audience.
To Cry Out In The Wilderness Tracklisting:
1. Moss Lung
2. Even When All Was Silent I Was Not Alone
3. The Mountain
4. To Cry Out In The Wilderness
5. Fight Song
6. Equals In Hope
7. Over
Scions are:
Cormac Culkeen - vocals
Dave Grenon - electronics + sound design
Andrew Mackelvie - saxophones & bass clarinet
Ellen Gibling - harp
India Gailey - cello
Ross Burns - electric guitar
Gabriella Ciurcovich - double bass
Michael Cloud Duguay - keyboards, accordion, guitar
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