Two releases from a "collective of like-minded musicians" from North West England whose approach to musical recordings makes you think of white coated scientists conducting experiments in a pristine laboratory.
The trial and error nature of this work is referenced in the title of the first CD.
Experimental Error #1 is a 23 minute single work of thirteen movements starting with A Beginning of Sorts and finishing with Another Ending. In between there are two "piano miniatures" and four movements entitled A Walk Along Crosby Beach.
This continual mix is designed to give "a feeling of travelling or of a journey, as well as to force a change in the listening habits of the receiver" i.e. to listen to an extended piece rather than individual tracks.
It's full of faintly orchestral ambience that swirls around without having any particular place to go.
The three tracks on (Under) Water Music have a clearer theme in that they are described as "Music derived from and for broadcast in the medium of water".
Water (Head) Phones features ten minutes of a looped sample of a Waterphone, an instrument that is reliant on water for its sound and is recorded in mono because stereo doesn't work under water. The result is a series of haunting muted tones faintly reminiscent of Tangerine Dream's Rubycon.
|
Palindrome has samples from a car electronically processed so that they sound the same played forwards or backwards. This achieves the musical aim of mimicking a journey that ends where it began (although it begs the question as to why anyone would want to play the piece backwards).
Sea Chimes is the most successful in musical terms. The calming waves of sound are the result of attempts to simulate the sound of chimes triggered by the sea rather than by wind. This involved computerised processing of sonic data recorded somewhere in the North Sea.
The collective's music is on the whole more interesting in theory than in practice but could be just the thing for meditating on the beach or beside the pool.
Car Alarm Quartet on Myspace
|
