Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Now this is interesting: a kind of interface between technology, humanity and plants which attempts to answer the question – in a free improvisational way – what would it sound like if we could communicate with plants and fungi?
What would we hear if we could listen to them?
Recorded in 2024 at a Sonic Artist Residency with drummer Kieran Monaghan and a number of reputable sonic artists (Ruby Solly on taonga pūoro, Kedron Parker, David Long, Gemma Thompson among them), this takes data from living plants and through the magic of human intellect turns it into sound from a synthesiser which the performers respond to.
It sounds a bit Dr Dolittle – except with plants and not animals – and some of the 13 pieces are more approachable than others (the quirky Strength of Rivers by Indigogue Browne, the rumbling piano energy of The Floor Holds by Andrew Faleatua, Timothy Morel's appropriately titled guitar piece Exuberant Whimsy).
Elsewhere you could set aside the backstory and just take this as you find it: free improvisation along the lineage from Avant Garage, Primitive Art Group, Phil Dadson, Braille and iiii offshoots, to some of the other Further Outwhere artists we've reviewed.
From the moody, scraped strings and argumentative trumpet of Ice Water. Warming World to Chrissie Butler's In The End, It's Enough – which starts with the kind of sound you'd hear as an “Evacuate Now” warning and becomes even more uneasy as it goes – this is a diverse, sometimes aurally head-spinning collection.
There's a lot of conversation going on between the plants and the players here.
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You can hear and buy this album (download, CD or on limited edition vinyl) at bandcamp here
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