Wave of inspiration

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This article was published 20/11/2020 (854 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The old adage that success is 10 per cent inspiration, 90 per cent perspiration holds true for Kerey Harper.

Harper, a musician and composer from St. Theresa Point First Nation, moved to Winnipeg in 2012 to attend River East Collegiate. After graduating in 2016, Harper finds himself back in his home community today, composing music for Nagamo Publishing.

“I’m glad I came in contact with them,” Harper said. “They’re doing some really neat stuff.”

Nagamo Publishing was founded as a joint project between APTN and Bedtracks, a Toronto-based music house. According to its website, Nagamo specializes in connecting producers and content creators with Indigenous composers, in an effort to “strengthen Indigenous representation in the film and television industry.”

A self-taught guitar player, Harper has been writing and recording music for over a decade now. His earliest work was all created using free computer software. As a student in River East’s music program, he released a number of tracks with the German experimental label Project Moon Circle and performed locally at the Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival.

“Kerey’s productions are imaginative and well formed, with a level of sound quality and attention to detail uncommon for somebody so young,” Eliot Britton, co-director of Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival, wrote in 2015.

Lately, Harper has invested in pedals and synthesizers in an effort to improve as a live instrumentalist.

“I like getting out of my comfort zone, trying new ways to make songs instead of a repeated process,” the 23-year-old said. “I try to switch it up. I’m trying to get away from computer composing as much, to try to get new ideas.”

Although his listening tastes are varied, Harper said recently he has been listening to Tame Impala and other psychedelic bands who use a lot of pedals and synths.

“I like what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s not electronic, but it’s a source of inspiration.”

With his first track for Nagano, Chloropsia,  Harper spent time revisiting old samples he’d created, then playing his guitar through his pedal board. 

“That was a lot of fun to make,” he said. “I went through these old sounds I recorded a long time ago. It sort of brought back that nostalgic feeling, that feeling of yearning.”

He even added some violin to the track, an instrument he’s only recently picked up.

“I’m good enough to play, anyway,” he said, with a laugh.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Harper has already submitted a new track, Moon Blur, to CBC’s Reclaimed, and is hard at work on more new material. He spends his days in a studio he has built in his parents’ old house, while they live nearby.

“I’m able to play and be as loud as I want,” he said. “I’ve got a great view, too, of the lake. It’s perfect.”

Apart from the locale, Harper said he is continually inspired by the gear he has acquired, and the process of creation itself. In particular, he mentioned that Hologram’s Infinite Jets sampler and Chased Bliss Audio’s MOOD loop pedals, along with Teenage Engineering’s OP1 synth have been key to his recent work.

“That triggers inspiration,” he said. “And it just goes off from there, and just keeps going and going.”

Sheldon Birnie
Community Journalist

Sheldon Birnie is a reporter/photographer for the Free Press Community Review. The author of Missing Like Teeth: An Oral History of Winnipeg Underground Rock (1990-2001), his writing has appeared in journals and online platforms across Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. A husband and father of two young children, Sheldon enjoys playing guitar and rec hockey when he can find the time. Email him at sheldon.birnie@canstarnews.com Call him at 204-697-7112

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