Taking an unconventional approach to communal music-making with a theatrical twist, The Air Contains Honey present their debut album, The Air Contains Honey Sings Quotes. Founded by Montreal-based Adam Kinner and Jacob Wren in 2018, the project combines professional and amateur singers repeating quotes from literature and theory over lilting arrangements that land somewhere between musical theatre, indie pop and spiritual jazz. If that sounds like a curious fusion, it’s entirely by design.

Wren‘s background as an artistic director and accomplished writer is matched by his passion for quotes, while Kinner‘s life as a professional musician has taken him across the world working on solo and group exhibitions and workshops, choreographic projects and interdisciplinary works. They founded The Air Contains Honey (named after a quote by Tori Kudo) in search of the heart-warming energy of group creativity, eventually settling on the idea of a community orchestra of amateur and professional musicians that could be loose and open, but also occasionally advanced.

Resisting the productivity treadmill of modern times, The Air Contains Honey has gently grown over time from a duo to a larger, ever-evolving ensemble. By 2023, the group’s body of work pointed towards recording an album, starting with a small core working on arrangements and building up melodic and harmonic parts before Kinner orchestrated the music to be played by a larger group of 19 musicians, 18 of whom also sang around a single microphone.

The quotes the group sing come from luminaries such as abstract painter Agnes Martin, famed British Army Officer and writer T.E. Lawrence and experimental poet and playwright Kathy Acker, to name but a few. Proving profundity is not just the preserve of academics and celebrated thinkers, the pool of thought extends to anonymous, eavesdropped conversation overheard in Montreal on ‘Told Not To Cry‘. In their simple, insistent repetition and melodic framing, each quote becomes a mantra that invites deeper consideration.

Musically and sonically, The Air Contains Honey reaches far and wide as a cornucopia of instrumentation from French horns, cornets, trumpets and sax slide into drum machines, synth, pedals, pianos and all manner of percussion. ‘Sexuality‘ ably demonstrates the scope of vision within the project as it comes to life on a delicately layered bed of harmonious drones pock-marked with micro rhythms and overlaid with smoky bass clarinet. Acker‘s words unfurl slowly from the mid-section as the arrangement gently comes to life. It’s a delicate but joyously unpredictable piece that brings the communal, down-to-earth spirit of the project into earshot before bursting into delightfully skewed, dynamic psych-funk.

‘How To Think‘ has a more strident song structure carrying charming pop motifs that leave you free to marvel at the wealth of detail carved into the music. Pietro Amato, Liam O’Neill and Kinner mixed the album, bringing the homespun spirit of the orchestra to the foreground in a aurally satisfying blend of finely sliced electronics woven through expressive flourishes of wind and keys.

‘Certain Joy‘ quotes from Wren‘s own acclaimed novel Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim, to insist, “There’s a certain joy in being wrong“. It’s a perfect summation of The Air Contains Honey, where perfection is secondary to the hum and haw of the collective endeavour, whatever imperfections it might bring. Skittering electronic pulses collide with a loping ensemble of horns that spiral upwards without a precise destination, all while striking a subtly melancholic note that feels like an Act One Finale despite its position as the album opener.

Joyous without being saccharine, clever without being pretentious and heartfelt without being sappy, The Air Contains Honey has a lot to say about the value of collaboration and group expression as an experience that should be available to all.

Credits

releases November 20, 2026

These songs are quotes from the following sources:

Track 1 – Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
Track 2 – Agnes Martin – Interview
Track 3 – Anonymous, overheard in Montreal
Track 4 – Kathy Acker, Great Expectations
Track 5 – Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letters
Track 6 – Chris Kraus, I Love Dick
Track 7 – Hans Ruin, On the Role of the University in the Age of Management Politics
Track 8 – T. E. Lawrence, (as quoted in Mirrors of the Unseen by Jason Elliot)
Track 9 – Angela Lopez, Bridge Retakes
Track 10 – Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
Track 11 – Paul Garon, Blues and the Poetic Spirit

The Air Contains Honey is a quote by Tori Kudo.

Recorded by: Pietro Amato and Adam Kinner
Recorded at: Breakglass Studios, Sky Barn and Studio 305 in
Montreal.
Mixed by: Pietro Amato, Adam Kinner and Liam O’Neill
Mastered by: Rupert Clervaux.
Design by: Jeremy McCormick.
Thanks to: Peter Burton, Olivier Bertrand, OFFTA, the musicians.
Original photo of Bunnies quilt by the International Quilt Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2012.015.0026.

The music was played by the following people:

Pietro Amato (cornet), Patrick Conan (drums, perc, voice), Michael Feuerstack (bass, slide guitar, voice), Émilie Fortin (trumpet), James Nicholas Dumile Goddard (saxophone, mbira, pedals, voice), Hanako Hoshimi-Caines (perc, voice), Thanya Iyer (synth, viola, voice), Modibo Keita (trombone), Adam Kinner (synth, saxophone, voice), Philippe Lauzier (bass clarinet), Liam O’Neill (drums, drum machine, synth, voice), Lara Oundjian (flute, voice), Pompey (clarinet, pedals, voice), Stephen Quinlan (saxophone, voice), Rebecca Rehder (auto harp, perc, voice), Catherine Fatima (perc, voice), Frédérique Roy (accordion, piano, voice), Mulu Tesfu (perc, voice), Jacob Wren (piano, voice).

Licence

c+p Quindi Records 2026
all rights reserved