On October 25, 2024, Redshift Records will release Butterfly Lightning Shakes The Earth, a new album by American-Canadian cellist and composer India Gailey. This recording presents Gailey's work as both composer and performer, offering two distinct pieces that showcase her approach to contemporary classical music.

The album features "Mountainweeps," a set of three brief solo cello pieces, and "Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth," a cello concerto performed with Symphony Nova Scotia under conductor Karl Hirzer.

Gailey wrote "Mountainweeps" in 2020 for Arlen Hlusko, the Grammy-winning, recently appointed Bang on a Can All-Stars cellist. The piece responds to climate change's impact on mountain ecosystems across its three movements - "glacial light fluttering in the wind," "naked of an ancient watery sheath," and "leaking fauna and stones." Each of these lasts less than a minute, adhering to the original commission's parameters that they suit Instagram posts. These short works demonstrate Gailey's compositional style, which combines experimental timbres with accessible melodies. As Hlusko noted when debuting the piece on Instagram in 2020, "India writes in a very open manner, inviting in a bit of improvisatory interpretation on the part of the performer — room to shape time, inflection, dynamics, timbre as one sees fit."

The album's centerpiece, "Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth," broadens Gailey's musical ideas to orchestral proportions. Gailey wrote this cello concerto during her stay at the Banff Centre, with support from the Upstream Music Association's Paul Cram Creation Award. Paul Cram, the award's namesake, was a musical innovator who combined jazz, classical, and world music traditions, often bringing together diverse artists to create new forms of expression. Gailey dedicated the piece to her father. The concerto unfolds in three movements: "SKY," "GOLDEN," and "JOINING."

Gailey's composition refers to the Buddhist idea of "joining heaven, earth, and humanity," a concept taught by Tibetan lama Chögyam Trungpa, one of the key figures responsible for teaching Buddhism to Westerners. This philosophical basis appears in the music through contrasts between gentleness and empathy, imagination and pragmatism, and connection with nature.

The "Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth" recording took place on January 11, 2024, at St. Andrew's Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the Upstream Open Waters Festival. This live performance captures Gailey's solo cello interacting with the full orchestra.

Gailey's orchestral writing evokes the emotional resonance of Romantic-era music reflected through her diverse musical background and interest in connecting different musical traditions, which extends to modern creative music contexts integrating turntables with traditional classical instruments and indie rock.

Writing about Gailey's 2022 release to you through, Peter Margasak of Bandcamp Daily observed her ability to bring "a certain air of spontaneity and an abiding curiosity" to her composed works, a quality very much present in Butterfly Lightning Shakes The Earth as well.

Butterfly Lightning Shakes The Earth fully displays Gailey's talents as both composer and performer. The album is a distinctive musical experience combining technical skill with philosophical depth while addressing current themes such as environmental change and integrating varied cultural influences.

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