Bruce Hornsby and the chamber ensemble yMusic first crossed paths at Bon Iver’s Eaux Claires festival back in 2016, and they’ve become steady collaborators. yMusic contributed to Hornsby’s 2019 album Absolute Vision and they went out on tour together in 2020, just before the pandemic, which is when their first full-length collaboration started to take shape. Today, they’re announcing that project, which is being released under the name BrhyM — the album is called Deep Sea Vents and will be out at the beginning of March. Below, you can hear lead single “Deep Blue.”

Here’s what Hornsby had to say about the track:

In eighth grade we had a poetry section in English class, and Stephen Crane (The Red Badge Of Courage) was on the list. For some reason some of my friends and I thought two of his poems were a scream so we never forgot them, and I couldn’t get them out of my mind after creating this track so just started singing them- voilà. The rest fairly much wrote itself, and Rob and CJ took over from there. yMusic may be the funkiest, groovingest chamber group in all the land! Plus- I’m making my recorded debut as an electric sitarist on this piece- I have a limited range and not much ability, granted, but I feel it added a wry, exotic and soulful texture to the song, so why not?

And here’s yMusic’s CJ Camerieri:

Bruce started the writing process for “Deep Blue.” When he sent sketches our way, we immediately fell in love with the vibe, and got excited about how this song would fit on the album. We love stretching the limits of our ensemble, working to sound like many different kinds of groups without changing instrumentation, and “Deep Blue” presented a great opportunity on that front. We ended up using the bass clarinet in a bass guitar-ish role, the trumpet as a Roy Hargrove-inspired rhythmic element, and the strings to take it home with a feature that goes to wildly unexpected, virtuosic, and contemporary places.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Wild Whaling Life”
02 “(My) Theory Of Everything”
03 “Platypus Wow”
04 “Phase Change”
05 “Foreign Sounds”
06 “The Wake Of St Brendan”
07 “Deep Blue”
08 “The Baited Line”
09 “Barber Booty”
10 “Deep Sea Vents”

Deep Sea Vents is out 3/1 via Zappo Productions/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order it here.