Inanimate Life by Mark Peter Wright

I like making field recordings, recording and archiving a moment in time, to travel back to while listening to it on some later day. The field recordings Mark Peter Wright made for his album Inanimate Life are not the same though. They take the listener a little closer to their sources. 

Mark Peter Wright made his field recordings along the North East coast of England, inspired by the voice of the coastal winds. Other than what you might expect from field recordings, it is never really clear what I am listening to. While listening to Inanimate Life on my headphones the sounds rumble through my head, evoking images in my mind of what might be the source of those haunting soundscapes.

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Song Review: Jónsi & Alex - Atlas Song

Only after listening to Jónsi’s solo album Go, I discovered last year’s Riceboy Sleeps by Jónsi and Alex, a collection of mesmerizing songs. Let’s listen to the second track on the album, Atlas Song and see where it brings me.

 

Atlas Song begins with subtle sound flakes made of high piano notes. A pizzicato violin appears in the distance and slowly the patterns start melting together in a dreamy field of sounds. Suddenly there is room for Jónsi’s voice, repeating the same melody over and over again.

 

This music does not have a clear beginning or end. It takes me to a place of dreams and memories. It creates one state, one atmosphere, without the ambition to surprise too much. And it feels good. Gentle crackles roughen up the texture of the smooth layers of sound. Towards the end the vocals become distorted and rusty. I am slowly moving away, back into my own world. 

 

As many of you know, Jónsi is the lead singer of Sigur Rós. Also be sure to check out his new solo album Go. Visit the Jónsi & Alex website jonsiandalex.com.

Classic: One Apartment and Six Drummers

Today we will watch a classic many of you will have seen before, but as it was made long before Everyday Listening was born, and I really like this to be part of my archives, here we go once again. Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers (2001) shows us a surreal situation in which six musicians ‘play’ the apartment of an unsuspecting couple while they walk their dog. 

I still love watching these smartly dressed drummers leave their Volvo for a well-planned guerilla performance. It is a wonderful and inspiring idea. The whole world can be our instrument, all we need is great musicians to play it!

The Mystery Of Grey Matters: a Polyalbum

I normally do not write album reviews on Everyday Listening, but this is a special case. It is not an album, it is a Polyalbum. A what? Well, to be honest, until I heard about this project I had no idea what that word meant. It is an album consisting of three discs. The first and the second can be played apart from each other, but the work comes together when they are played simultaneously. The third disk is for lazy people or people with only one CD player and contains a pre-mixed version of disks one and two. 

The Mystery Of Grey Matters is a project by Charlie McCarron. It tells the story of Gregory (Grey) Matters, who is suffering from strange hallucinations. He starts living in two separate worlds, almost without being able to tell which one is real and which one is dreamt. People start to think he is going crazy. The polyalbum allows us to listen to these two worlds separately, or combined.

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Quintetto

The vertical movement of the fishes in these five aquariums is captured by a video camera and this data is used to influence the sounds we hear. So in this sound installations it is the fishes who conduct the music.

Quintetto is an installation by Quiet Ensemble in collaboration with Aesop Studio. They attempt to reveal what they call "invisible concerts of everyday life". As the fishes (most probably) do not know what their movement results in, the live concert they create will never be exactly the same.

Prepared turntable by Yuri Suzuki

Yuri Suzuki, born in Tokyo and now working in London, created the 'prepared turntable'. We could call it an analog looping machine, with great looks! This is a good example of a sound installation with a great visual aspect to it, yet still what you see is totally functional.

On the sonic side I don't find the prepared turntable particularly interesting, but of course there only so much you can do with a two-second loop. I like how Suzuki reminds us of the physical side of sound, a side we almost forget in these days of digital files and the internet.

Leafcutter John remix competition

I've seen Leafcutter John play live twice. The first time was amazing. It was a perfect performance combining the sounds of the guitar, cello and vocals with funny sounds, like from blowing on a straw in a glass of water, live processed with his handwritten software.

The second time was not good at all. He sung loud and uncontrolled like a drunkard, and the whole performance totally missed the nuance and intimicy of the first one. While this left a bad taste in my mouth I have to say I still like his music, and his way of melting together instruments and everyday sounds.

Now you can remix Leafcutter John. There's a competition ending at the end of this month, so you have about two weeks left. There already is a good amount of remixes to be heard on his website, including a very nice one by Sunken Foal. Click on the image for details.

Amazing music making machines

I found this wonderful video via Make Magazine showing music making machines created by Felix Thorn in his South London bedroom:

Thorn created the instrument because he wanted his compositions to be played without a performer. I wonder how many other great installations are made in bedrooms we don't know of and maybe will never hear.