Like Light Off Water, is an evocation in music and poetry of Marlatt’s classic long poem Steveston. With music composed and performed by  Minden & Hallett, the album Introduces the voice of celebrated Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt. The DUO and Daphne Marlatt shaped the album into a spoken word/concert that toured Like Light Off Water to writers festivals and Canadian universities.

Minden and Hallett have composed a delicate fabric of microtonal nuance and lyrical intimacy to surround Marlatt’s poetic voicing, rhythm and imagery. Her words bring you to the river’s mouth and into a sensuous landscape of lives lived in canneries, fishing camps, on the sea and over time. Marlatt’s exquisite reading offers a unique entrance into her evocative world of a complex and culturally diverse Steveston, once a thriving fishing community at the mouth of British Columbia’s Fraser river. This fascinating mix of music and spoken word offers a deeply felt experience that takes you gently in.

 “stunning! “ Sheryl Mackay, North By North West, CBC Radio

 “Like Light Off Water is a new kind of soundscape, the musical score of 3 psyches collaborating on what is certainly one of the great poems of the recent past.”  Craig Tapping, Department of English, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, Canada

“It was stirring. It was visceral. The way Daphne Marlatt’s paradoxically hushed and strong voice uttered each line; the eerie howling of Carla Hallett’s intonations; Robert Minden’s careful use of unconventional instruments; a waterphone, a saw, a child’s piano. The hydro-phonic soundscape. The watery illumination of the stage. All of these elements coexisted and flourished together.” Kathleen Gorman, graduate studies, Carlton University

“Pure poetry, pure sound, shifting the listener’s consciousness to the depths of pure feeling.”

Dianne Wells, The WholeNote Magazine, April 2009