Good afternoon! If you’ve been a longtime visitor around these parts, you’ll remember Musk Ox, from all the times we’ve previously discussed that Canadian folk trio as well as some of its members’ numerous other musical pursuits.

Well, yesterday I received an interesting bit of news from the group:

 

Hi Everyone!

We hope you are all well, safe, thriving and taking time to nurture whatever endeavours bring you fulfillment.

We just wanted to share some exciting news. After years of people telling us that our music would be great for tv/film we are thrilled to announce that several of our songs will appear in the new medical/mystery series Watson on CBS! The second episode airs tonight (Sun Feb 16th) at 9pm EST and features our song “Weightless.” We’re honoured to have been asked to provide songs for this series and are grateful for the opportunity to reach new audiences with our music. If you happen to catch the episode tonight, take a video while our song plays and tag us @muskoxofficial.

 

Musk Ox – Inheritance (self-released, 09 July 2021)

 

Nathanael Larochette – Old Growth (self-released, 21 July 2023)

 

For the uninitiated, Watson is a brand-new show (the pilot episode premiered on CBS and Paramount+ last month, with regular weekly episodes scheduled to begin as of last night) which stars Morris Chestnut as the titular doctor. In this modernized adaptation, Watson is moving on from the canonical death of his former partner in crime-solving, Sherlock Holmes, whereupon he has started a medical facility — a fictional foundation set right here in Pittsburgh, PA — that appears (based on the one episode that has aired thus far) to specialize in rare and unusual ailments, thus calling upon the doctor’s famed investigative skills.

While I don’t usually find myself drawn toward medical dramas, I’ve always been a connoisseur of all things Holmes-related, so I decided to investigate that pilot when it aired and have been looking forward to the continuation of the story for these past couple weeks. The series can be found streaming here, where I was already planning to check out the second episode tonight, but now I’ll also have my ears attuned to catch the inclusion of the Musk Ox material mentioned above.

As I’ll be stuck at work for another few hours still, in the meantime it seemed like a perfect time to revisit the 2021 album on which the song in question was originally released. And while we’re at it, it never hurts to pop in to see what else these musicians have been up to lately, so I’ll toss in one member’s solo album as a bonus in this article, and then spend some time with another member’s output shortly thereafter.

 

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My introduction to this combo named for a boreal bovine came when I wrote about their album Woodfall almost eleven years ago, which was technically the second Musk Ox record but the first with their current line-up as a guitar/violin/cello trio.

Much like its predecessor, the five tracks that make up Inheritance often evoke moods ranging from dark and mournful to peaceful and serene. Much of the time the two four-stringed instruments harmonize with each other, giving a baroque chamber feeling, whereas their six-stringed counterpart often tends toward a more classical styling. However, the various parts are woven together intricately and seamlessly over the entire course of roughly three-quarters of an hour.

Taken as a whole, the record comes across as pastoral and picturesque, lending itself to generating fanciful imagery in the listener’s mind, much akin to one of the segments from Disney’s Fantasia, such as “Rite of Spring.” So it’s no wonder that these guys would receive the feedback they had cited in their message about scoring film or television, and it’s no wonder that a song like the closing track (for which the official video may be viewed below) would have been selected for inclusion in a tv show.

 

 

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Almost exactly two years after the above-described group effort, and just a little under two years before the present time, guitarist and founder Nathanael Larochette put out his own collection of music, a follow-up to 2016’s double LP Earth and Sky which was one of the releases we had discussed here around that time.

He describes Old Growth, a collection of fourteen solo acoustic guitar etudes, as having been “recorded live (often by candlelight) in a woodland cabin on the shores of White Lake, Ontario,” a rather evocative description that should place you into an appropriate state of mind to appreciate these gently contemplative pieces.

Coming from a composer and instrumentalist who’s also known for contributing interludes to break up otherwise much heavier-sounding bands’ albums — and granted, any of these would have functioned nicely in such a capacity as well — it’s interesting to be presented with nonstop sounds exclusively from the plucking of strings stretched over a hollow wooden body, without any distorted electric tones or harsh screaming to provide contrast against. Everything here is stripped-down and mellow, even as evidenced by some of the song titles, including “Rest” and “Quiet.”

The guitarist concludes his description of the album by offering, “I hope these fragile instrumentals can offer a private soundtrack to the quiet truths within, reminding us of our place in this vast forest of existence.” This reviewer — who frequently steps out of a day of nonstop calamity at the office and unwinds by disappearing into the nearby woods until it starts getting too dark to see the path beneath my feet, tuning out all the stress and craziness by focusing on the sounds of the birds singing and the wind blowing — can completely appreciate this sentiment.

 

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The Musk Ox album is available here (digital/CD – vinyl is sold out); the Larochette solo excursion is available here (digital/vinyl/guitar tab book).
 

 

Musk Ox: Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
 
Nathanael Larochette: website | Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Instagram