“I grew up in a tiny village in the North Yorkshire Moors,” explains British sound artist Mark Peter Wright. “I was always outdoors, and I collected anything and everything: stones, feathers, empty shotgun cartridges.” Now in his early thirties and based in London, Wright is still actively involved with landscape, but his childhood enthusiasm forContinue reading “Listening as Territory”
Author Archives: Musicworks
A Few More Words About Times Square
Max Neuhaus’ permanent sound installation, Times Square (1977–1992; 2002–present), has become a place that I visit every time I find myself in New York City. There is something about revisiting it, spending some time standing on the pedestrian traffic island between Forty-Fifth and Forty-Sixth Streets listening to the clatter of footsteps pace across the concrete,Continue reading “A Few More Words About Times Square”
Jean-François Laporte
A maze of thin, transparent hose bundled by lock ties runs along the walls and floors of a spacious studio painted white from floor to ceiling. At the back of the studio near a tool and supply room, an air compressor kicks into action with a thump. Hissing air begins filling the lengthy veins ofContinue reading “Jean-François Laporte”
Derek Charke
Derek Charke is irresistibly attracted to the North. In 2006 he found himself in the Yukon, dogsledding with the Kronos Quartet. For a composer with a love of the Arctic it doesn’t get better, or more surreal, than this. A few days earlier he had been in a Whitehorse hotel room where Kronos was rehearsingContinue reading “Derek Charke”
Years
Years is a sound installation for modified record player that examines the disparity between the experience of time passing and time as an objective quantity. The piece uses a turntable to “play” a vinyl-Lp-sized cross section of a tree. A camera fitted with a microscopic lens replaces the needle on the record player’s tone arm. DuringContinue reading “Years”
Paris, France
On June 21, 1982, the French Ministry of Culture introduced the first Fête de la Musique (meaning celebration/feast of music, and a homophone of Faites-musique—make music), a large street party where musicians reignite ancient pagan solstice rituals in spontaneous concerts featuring amateur and professional musicians from all genres. Noise and drinking restrictions are relaxed, andContinue reading “Paris, France”
Havana, Cuba
What does a city sound like whose history spans periods of colonial opulence, Mafia casino decadence, and a dying communist revolution? The habanera, the salsa, and reggaeton. Havana’s storied past has produced a musical culture as varied and deep as the sociopolitical eras that it has survived. During the nineteenth century Havana gave birth toContinue reading “Havana, Cuba”
Rings of Beijing
I sit staring at the laptop screen in my Beijing hotel room. Writers’ block. Silently trying to formulate words. No sounds enter my consciousness. Only the insistent hum of the laptop. Until my listening body is dropped into a pool of sound. Concentric sonic circles ripple out from the imitation Qing chair. My energy isContinue reading “Rings of Beijing”
Joëlle Léandre
For Joëlle Léandre it all begins and ends with the double bass. After playing the often unwieldy bull fiddle from the age of nine and carefully studying its intricacies, she creates with it sounds so personal that defining them as free music, new music. or anything else, is beside the point. Since the late 1970s, Paris-basedContinue reading “Joëlle Léandre”
Thomas, Farah, and D’Eon
I’m sitting with Thom Gill and we’re talking about his most recent EP Such Is Your Triumph, arguably his most intimate and personal set of recordings to date. In addition to his beautifully hushed and harmonically inventive takes on two gospel songs made famous by the Clark Sisters, the EP also contains several original pieces,Continue reading “Thomas, Farah, and D’Eon”