My fave new discovery was recently sent to us by Australia's sound collage superstar Buttress O'Kneel, who co-recorded this in 2000/2001 with Panthera Leo (who is now the mother of the kid in Stinky Picnic) and is finally letting it out of the can. The Fruiting Body used no guitars, no keyboards, no drums...heck, no instruments of any kind. Check the ingredients for one song:
2 rubber bands, plucked 1 retractable ball point pen, clicking
2 Bessemer saucepan lids, ringing
1 elephant, thumping
1 elephant, spraying
1 elephant, rumbling
1 extremely low sine wave
Sample, loop, and serve. Could have been a gimmicky novelty, or a dry piece of conceptual art, but it's really just good music. I started listening out of curiosity (what does a radar, owl, and air raid siren sound like mixed?) but ended up being quite struck by both the technical ingenuity and the musical qualities. The song "Eel Race Road" is freakin' epic. Free/name-your-price download here:
The Fruiting Body: "Nudibranch and the Moondew" (click on 'lyrics' to get each track's ingredients)
This album reminded me of the early days of sampling, when the idea of finally being able to make music out of everyday sounds was an exciting new one, e.g.: Bernie Krause' 1988 all-animal-fx classic "Gorillas In the Mix." But sampling existing musics (and tv, radio, etc) as a way to deal with our 'media environment' quickly took precedent, Ms. O'Kneel being one of it's foremost proponents (she claims that the events of 9/11 also pushed her into that direction.) And there's also the fact that it is simply easier to make music with music then with hairdryers and trains. Still, there's a lot of potential for this approach. Back in 2005 we wrote about Matthew Herbert's yummy album that used only food sounds. It is now available to listen/purchase:
Matthew Herbert "Plat du Jour" (song notes HERE.)
The notes point put that the first song uses, among other sounds "chickens being killed for a local farmers' market and its feathers washed and plucked." Oh man, now I'm hungry. Who's up for some KFC?!
4 comments:
Great show w. Gary last night, Mr. Fab!
I just dled The Fruiting Body and I wish I'd had "Blood Orange" to play at Halloween (I assume other people are as scared of air raid sirens as I am...they totally freak me out).
Or maybe younger folks don't have the same reaction. Anyway, thank you!
Thanks Holly, I thought it just might be me and Gary, with tumbleweeds blowing thru, but it did turn into a nice little party.
Us Cold War kids remember the weekly duck-and-cover air raid siren drills, so I understand your reaction. But I always thought they sounded kinda cool, because...well, check the name of this blog.
Congrats on the excellent broadcast. Not too long for me, at all.
I really enjoyed the Fruiting Body, also. Wot a post!
thanks for sharing! just a note: although a lot of the sounds on this album are "sound effects" (like the elephants, f'rinstance), most of them were painstakingly recorded ourselves (mostly by Panthera Leo, actually). and on some tracks (like 'Spoke with Chopsticks' and 'Thoron'), we did zero post-editing or effects or cutting up or anything, just let the sounds speak for themselves. 'Thoron' is actually one of my personal faves - it's made of just blank tape and melting ice, two things usually assumed to be silent... so bringing those sounds out was a real delight. there is another album somewhere, will try to find it and upload it some time. thanks again for the exposure! it's an old project, but dear to my heart.
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