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A Gradual Awakening

by Danna & Clément

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  • Vinyl

    Limited to 400 copies. Comes with printed inner sleeve with album liner notes and track-by-track description.

    Due to the nature of this license, no digital is included.

    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 400 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $28 CAD or more 

     

about

Mychael and I literally began recording this music on January 1st, 1980—the very first day of the new decade. From the outset, we knew we were onto something different, though we weren’t sure exactly where it would lead.

Over the next two years, as we both moved from place to place, we recorded whenever we could. Sessions took place in our home studios in Burlington and Dundas, and later at my homestead in Maple Leaf and a secluded log cabin studio in Maynooth.

Everything was analog back then. We hauled heavy modular synthesizers, tape decks, and various equipment deep into Ontario’s wilderness.

The natural outdoor sounds woven into the album were recorded at my cabin, where I was living off the grid on a 100-acre patch of forest—no overhead electrical lines, just trees and tape decks.
To power the studio, we ran long extension cords hundreds of meters through the woods to a generator in the barn. Since portable digital recorders did not yet exist, we carried a 54-pound Studer Revox reel-to-reel deck into the forest to record the soundscape and powered it the same way. Recording in those conditions wasn’t easy, but it was central to how the album came together.

A Gradual Awakening grew out of a slow, quiet process, shaped by the places we lived, the tools we had, and a shared instinct to follow the music wherever it led. It was created over time—layer by layer, season by season—and in close connection with our surroundings.

– Tim Clément

credits

released October 24, 2025

A Gradual Awakening
Composed, recorded, and produced by Mychael Danna & Tim Clément in Ontario, between 1980 and 1982.

Mychael Danna & Tim Clément: analog synthesizers (Korg MS20, Korg MS 3200, ARP 2600, Korg Polysix), Les Paul guitar, modified autoharp, tape loop delays, field recordings, and sound effects.
Dario Domingues: Quena flute
Thanks to: Stephen Hill, R. Murray Schafer, Dave Beare, Larry Potvin, Dave Faber, Constantine Katsiris
Original cover photography: Blake Williams (1986), Grant MacKay (2005)
Photo of Danna & Clément: Gary Spearin
Art layout: Steve Lewin
Remastered by: Noah Mintz

Original album art image licensed from Oasis Productions from their release version.

This album is dedicated to the birth of Tim’s son, Joda Clément, 1981

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about

Danna & Clément image

Danna & Clément Toronto, Ontario

The Canadian environmental music duo of Mychael Danna (Academy Award-winning composer for Life of Pi) and his life-long music partner Tim Clément.

The duo began writing music together as teenagers in the mid-1970s and has always held a strong belief that music has a profound effect on all aspects of ours lives – physical, emotional and spiritual. ... more

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