Solar-powered journey preserves the music of Newfoundland church organs

Michael Cloud Duguay and his team embarked on a pipe organ tour of Newfoundland in July 2024, using a solar-powered mobile studio to record instruments in remote churches. The result is his album 'Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go', a collection of quiet, elegiac pieces that also serves as an audio documentary of the organs and their communities.

During the trip, the crew faced a challenge in Aguathuna, a town of about 400 people, where locals initially said there was no organ. A teenage volunteer recalled seeing something in the balcony: an electronic organ with two Leslie speaker cabinets, unused since the 1990s. When Duguay pressed a key, the sound became track 'Pond 1'. The single note wavered and sputtered, capturing the organ coming back to life.

Duguay also recorded interviews with church members, asking what they thought would happen to the instruments. Many expressed faith that the churches would remain forever, even as attendance declines. Duguay, who grew up Catholic but no longer practices, wanted to capture the organs within their spiritual and social contexts, surrounded by sounds of birds, wind, and creaking floorboards.

The album features layers of organs, saxophones, flutes, and ambient noise. One track, 'Damnable Island', layers the same note (E-flat) from seven different organs, creating a rich, strange sound due to variations in tuning. Duguay, a punk and indie rock musician with no formal organ training, intentionally kept his approach simple.

'Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go' is set for release on July 10.