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WHETHAM, SIMON - From the Mouths of Clay

Format: MC Label & Cat.Number: Helen Scarsdale Agency HMS029 Release Year: 2014 Note: resonances from three prehispanic burial urns were treated with ALVIN LUCIERs 'endless playback' technique (as invented on "I am sitting in a Room"), resulting in strange overtune sounds & more concrete scrapings & scratch sounds.. great work that was created during his 3 month stay at a residency / gallery in Colombia in 2013 !! professionally duplicated cassette & cover Price (incl. 19% VAT): €9.50 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info "For 3 months in early 2013, Simon Whetham had the space and opportunity to develop his work, ideas and methods, taking part in the inaugural residency of a lab project run collaboratively by the Museo Universitario de la Universidad de Antioquia and Casa Tres Patios in Medellín, Colombia. Combining and building on recording and playback methods and ideas with found objects, discarded technology and methods of his working practice and others such as Alvin Lucier and Nicholas Collins he investigated sonic, acoustic and phenomenological qualities of the gallery space and faulty or used equipment that was donated or found in nearby market La Cascada. Following on from a 'recreation' of “I am Sitting in a Room”, the process was applied to a selection of 3 prehispanic burial urns and 3 examples of more recent variations on this theme. The internal resonances were captured and then played back inside the urns utilising small speakers, or through them using transducers, the process repeated to uncover tones held within the clay and the space within. The result was demonstrated as an 8 channel installation, with each of the 6 vessels singing with it's own voice and 2 speakers playing lower tones created by the vessels using the same process, but using a microphone inside each and a larger speaker placed against the outside. This work combines sound material from the installation and further investigations carried out during the residency period, recorded in the space, from inside the vessels or reproduced inside and through them. From The Mouths Of Clay was professionally duplicated onto cassette, of course. sound sample: https://soundcloud.com/helen-scarsdale/simon-whetham-from-the-mouths-of-clay-excerpt" [label info] "Somewhat of a traveling person, our Simon Whetham. Early 2013 we found him (not literally of course) in Medellin, Colombia, as a resident of a lab project at the Museo Universitario de la Universidad and Cas Tres Patios, recording and playing back sounds from found objects, much alike Alvin Lucier's 'I'm Sitting In A Room' and to that end he used three pre-Hispanic burial urns and three more recent examples of that, capturing resonances in these urns and playing them back, using small speakers in these urns, as well as two speakers playing the lower tones created by the vessels using the same process, but using a microphone inside each and a larger speaker placed against the outside. I hope I more or less correctly summarized what this tape is about. I expected something more linear, along the lines of the Lucier piece, with sounds gradually evolving and decaying, but here it is straight from the beginning in full on decay. The great thing about the Lucier piece is not the piece itself, but the ideas behind it: to use space as an instrument and work around with sounds and compose with all these elements. That I believe is what Whetham does here; he assembled a whole bunch of recordings from various stages of the process and combines these in such a way that a composition arrives, not linear as with Lucier, but all the more listenable. He takes us on a trip of broken resonant sounds that keep decaying and on side 2 (another piece? a continuation of side 1?) starts to crackle and burst. Great release, which is not close to his more commonly used field recordings work, but in a somewhat different guise this time." [FdW/Vital Weekly]