David Irwin

Unless you’re deep into experimental and avant-garde saxophone, chances are you’ve never heard anyone play quite like Michigan-born, Montreal-based Colin Stetson. Between using circular breathing (simultaneously breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth in order play continuously), the keys as percussion, and singing into his horn via a mic attached to his neck, often all at once, the amount of sound the man gets out of the instrument is astounding.

It becomes only more impressive live when you see the sheer amount of physical exertion it takes to bring these pieces to life.

Last Friday at Il Motore, Stetson was red in the face and grimacing after every mini-marathon song of technical wizardry.

Make no mistake, as much as the songs dazzled on a scholarly level, he hit a rare (and welcome) balance where his fantastically creative compositions also worked emotionally.