Skip to main content

Pauline Oliveros – with Goddard in the Dan Harpole Cistern

 

This piece made me feel uneasy. It sounds very eerie and could have come straight out of a horror movie. I guess the idea came from singing in the cistern, as there are a lot of echoes in there. I also watched the short video with it. When the lady came down the ladder, she looked a bit like an angel being shone on from above. But as she went to explore the cistern, I found it quite spooky. But at the same time, it was also beautiful at some parts. It reminded me a bit of the Titanic, or sirens singing in the ocean. The voices drift far and mix together nicely.

The clanging that comes later on gave me chills. It sounds scary, like a murderer trying to break out of a prison cell. And the dark video with it, it is just very spooky and mystical. The whole atmosphere of the song and the video fits together nicely, it is something I could imagine at a cult meeting or something like that.

I wouldn’t call this music in the normal sense; it is just sounds mixed together in some kind of harmony. I do wonder how many people were involved in the making of this, as it sounds like a big number of voices, but only very few people are shown in the video, and none of them are singing as far as I could see. Or maybe the sound was made separately from the video. However, at some parts it sounded like there were some sounds of the filming or the camera gear, some small clicks. But I might be wrong.

I would not listen to this in my free time, maybe just to create a spooky atmosphere for a movie night with friends. That is all it could serve me for.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more