LAWRENCE ENGLISH – EVEN THE HORIZON KNOWS ITS BOUNDS
There is a direct relationship between sound and architecture: what you hear at home will sound quite different in a church.
Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds started with an invitation to create a sound environment ‘reflecting on the Naala Badu building ar the Art Gallery of New South Wales‘. Following the opening in 2022, this music was played for a year ‘offering an atmospheric tint to visitors walking through the building’.
It is now presented as an uninterrupted piece, 45 minutes long, divided into eight seamlessly merging segments.
Lawrence English created this piece by sending two long-form ‘sound prompts’ to different artists, who responded with their contribution which was then ‘digested’ in the final piece. It’s an impressive list of collaborators, featuring – among others – Chris Abrahams, Claire Rousay, Dean Hurley, Jim O’Rourke, Madeleine Cocolas, Norman Westberg.
As a result, the different segments all have their own specific atmosphere, all embedded in the continuous soundscapes created by English. It is quite a journey from the piano improvisations (Abrahams?) to the abstract ‘Lynchian’ depths (Hurley?) and back via a different route.
If you are familiar with the work of the contributing artists, then you may perhaps recognize their particular contribution. But as a whole, this is definitely a Lawrence English composition. And a quite intense one, too.
Seeing the images of the Naala Badu building (link above) I wonder about the impact of these sounds on the visitors. That will probably also depend on the volume in which it was played, but it must have been quite an experience.
At your home, it deserves to be played on a decent level, through decent speakers. And to be listened to without distraction.
Available on vinyl and dgital download.
SARA PERSICO – SPHAÎRA
Sphaîra, the new album by Italian artist Sara Persico (currently based in Berlin) is also closely related to architecture. The music on this album is created with sounds recorded at the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli, Libanon. A vast exhibition center designed between 1962 and 1967, that was never completed.
‘When civil war broke out in 1975, construction ground to a halt and was never resumed, leaving the sea air to
slowly dissolve the 18 abandoned concrete structures.’
Its Experimental Theatre dome has a unique ‘whispering effect’ acoustics that allows visitors standing on opposite sides of the building to hear each other clearly, no matter how softly they’re speaking.
On her visit in 2022, Persico recorded the environment’s uncanny acoustic atmosphere. ‘By singing, screaming, whispering, moving objects, and producing sound with metal plates that hung from the roof of the structure, she sketched out every corner of the theatre.’
These recordings are not simply presented as they are, but are heavily processed and reworked into – perhaps even more uncanny – different electro-acoustic soundscapes.
‘It’s as if Persico is communicating with not just the space, but with history – her processes are contemporary, but the elements themselves have been snatched from time.’
Sphaîra is only available as a digital download.