Jason Robinson - Ancestral Numbers I (2024) [Hi-Res]

I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that underlying patterns influence our lives and that they manifest enigmatically and mysteriously across and within generations. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but uncanny syncretisms–the stubborn coincidences whose songs lurk in the edges of the mind’s ear–bloom across my ancestral record, as they might yours as well.

Ancestral Numbers is a sound meditation on genealogy and family history comprising an ongoing series of compositions for varying instrumentation. The present album, Ancestral Numbers I, along with its subsequent partner Ancestral Numbers II, are the first published documents of the project.

Numbers: the numerical relationships revealed in one’s ancestry, perhaps a guide or motivating energy, a companion, a guardian.

Number: a song, a tale, an imaginative fragment or universe, momentarily drawn out of one’s ancestry and generational histories, but also as a broader investigation of who we are and from where we come.

I began composing the Ancestral Numbers series shortly after the passing of my grandmother on my mother’s side. Ruby Annette Kilbury (nee Thomason) was the oldest of four siblings and was raised on farms in Arkansas and Texas, before settling in California as an adolescent. Ancestral Numbers I and Ancestral Numbers II are inspired by the loving warmth of her influence in my family.