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Simon Whetham - Slopt
1 Acclivity 7:57
The first CD release for SiRiDisc is Simon Whetham’s work ‘Slopt’. In August 2008 Simon visited Edinburgh to perform at the Mach Nausea event organised by Lin Zhang, and stayed for four more days, exploring the streets and alleyways of the city, mainly at night or early in the morning, recording as he went. The sounds captured the character of the city - the narrow alleyways, the steep sloping streets, the tall buildings, the many levels of the city. However, these sounds were left untouched for almost two years, until Simon was once again invited to perform in Edinburgh, this time at the Dialogues Festival. Revisiting the material Simon discovered many more musical elements, which he used as the basis of the piece for the performance. On returning home he continued to reconfigure the composition, that had become a piece of four distinct parts, all reflecting characteristics of Edinburgh and his experiences of the city. Simon Whetham has been capturing and composing almost primarily with field recordings since taking part in a research trip to Iceland in 2005. Since then he has been gaining a steadily increasing profile: exhibiting in Iceland; recording in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil; performing at a large number of festivals and events, both nationally and internationally, notably the recent Madeiradig 2010; having work accepted for release by labels Dragon's Eye, Con-V, Trente Oiseaux, 1000fussler, Mystery Sea, Entr’acte, Install, Lens and Gruenrekorder; commissioned by Creative Labs to build a surround sound installation to demonstrate their equipment and software; commissioned by painter Kathryn Thomas to compose a surround soundtrack to accompany her ‘Lightyears’ series of exhibitions; producing radio works for Resonance FM, Overlap.org and Kunst Radio Austria; and invited to participate in two residencies at the Art Container in Tallinn, Estonia, the second to compose new work, collaborate with other artists using sound and run active listening, field recording and compostion workshops. This residency has resulted in ‘Active Crossover’, a touring exhibition and exchange project which continues to tour through 2011 in four further exhibition spaces across the UK. Future events and projects also include a performance at Experimental Intermedia in New York, and running field recording workshops in Bogota, Columbia. Reviews. Siridisc moves into releasing 'real' CDs now, no doubt thanks to pressing plants willing to press 100-200 real ones for you, which I think is a good thing. Simon Whetham is the first to make it here onto a 'real' CD and it is based on recordings he made in Edinburgh in 2008 from the small alleyways and steep sloping streets. In 2010 he was invited to play in Edinburgh again and decided to the sound material he made two years before and subsequently reworked those sounds into a new piece of music, 'Slopt'. Actually four pieces of music. I am not sure what Whetham does to the sound material, in which way it is treated - if at all. Well, actually I think it is processed, as I find it very hard to believe we find such long form sustaining sounds as in 'Precipitous' on any street, even in Edinburgh. Just exactly how it works I don't know, but it does work well, especially in that piece. Whereas in 'Acclivity' we have the street sounds as they are, in 'Precipitous' and in 'Declivity' they form a large drone-scape of multiple layered tones of unknown origin (maybe a mass of layered, pitched down church bells, I wondered) and of a dark, somewhat unsettling nature. In 'Level' it seems as if Whetham entered a church and captured the organist rehearsing, stapling his clusters into a musical piece, but perhaps its this musical edge that makes this piece also a bit out of place with the rest. I was never in Edinburgh, but from what I know of this city, it may seem that Whetham has captured the spirit of the city quite well. Not always entirely 'new', but throughout quite an excellent disc. (FdW,Vital Weekly)
This is a slightly different incarnation of Simon than has previously
appeared in these pages. Here he has taken on a more tonal aspect to
his music and crafted a set of slowly evolving, revolving or devolving
(delete as appropriate) drone pieces. The source materials for this set
was recorded during a series of late-night / early morning walks around
Edinburgh in 2008 but it wasn't until 2 years later that he began to
work them into any sort of form. Those walks must have had a real
effect because the music here is as expansive as I've heard from him and
then some. It retains the slightly gritty textures of his previous work
but there are rounder more ambient tonalities in there too and I find
this contrast really appealing. In turns it's meditative, disquieting,
hallucinogenic, unsettling and transportative and utterly compulsive.
(Wonderful Wooden Reasons)
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