IN DEMAND: Yan Westerlund has sat behind the drum kit for notable indie acts such as Sylvan Esso, Ani DiFranco, Phil Cook, and many others en route to releasing his own music. (Submitted photo)

Quetico, a provincial park in Ontario, Canada, is 1.2 million acres of rugged boreal wilderness made up of a vast system of lakes, connected by portages, and traversable by canoe. It’s a place one goes to be alone, to disappear into a chorus of natural sounds, to reset, and to lose all sense of normal time. Quetico, the solo jazz project of Eau Claire native Yan Westerlund, serves that exact same purpose, except indoors.

Westerlund, who now resides in North Carolina, has performed and recorded drums with notable indie outfits such as Sylvan Esso, Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Phil Cook, Bowerbirds, Mipso, and Daughter Of Swords, to name a fraction. He has also played in the progressive-experimental outfit, Canine Heart Sounds, since the late-aughts. In Quetico, though, Westerlund serves as the sole composer, meticulously exploring the edges of jazz music and what lies beyond the constructs of traditional structure. 

Quetico’s newest release, Know You Are, is a more subdued follow-up to 2019’s maximalist Man Alone. It’s the sound of Westerlund fully realizing his vision for the project, resulting in a meticulously crafted piece of art. With the help of Tim Sullivan and Mark Paulson on an array of instruments, Know You Are features an amalgam of wild time signatures played on Yan’s stripped-down kit, electronic drum pads, sultry saxophone, expansive flute and clarinet, calming piano, digital noise modulations, and big, hooky synths. 

The entire record is a proof point that Westerlund operates on another level musically. There’s a very studied jazz mastery at play here, transforming into hip-hop, R&B, even easy listening at times, then completely cathartic walls of sound at others. In all Quetico’s heady decision-making, Know You Are feels like a genuine expression of what truly goes on in our own scattered heads. There’s hope, lightness, purity, intensity, and indecipherable disorder, all neatly contained in just seven tracks.

Much like the real Quetico, Know You Are is worth returning to time and time again to find new paths, explore new depths, or to just get lost for a little while. It’s a welcome addition to the ever-growing list of genre-pushing music being made by musicians native to Eau Claire. 

Know You Are by Quetico is available now on all major streaming services. For more information on Westerlund’s musical ventures, you can visit his website, yanwesterlund.com.