Cathy Lane — The Hebrides Suite
Cathy Lane is a British sound artist, composer, and lecturer at the University of Arts in London. This release is her first full length release on the excellent German based field recording/ soundscape label Gruenrekorder; though she has already had her tracks featured on past label compilations such as: Playing with Words: an audio compilation & Autumn Leaves.
As we’ve come to expect from Gruenrekorder the release is presented in fine, colourful & informative fashion. The disc comes in a colour digipak sleeve which takes in a stark seascape photograph, with just a single orange boy floating in a otherwise & empty grey seascape. The release comes with a eight page full colour booklet, which takes in pictures from around the islands. A write-up about the whole release, and a informative write-up about each of the six sound works presented here.
The six tracks each run between eight & twelve mintues a piece, and each track mixers together field recordings, conversations, oral histories, and interviews- from track to track the mix of the above elements does vary, so some tracks are more field recording focused, while others more conversations, oral histories, or interview based, or some tracks are an even mix of all elements.
Clearly Ms Lane has taken a lot of time editing, layering and putting together the tracks, and there a real feeling of traveling both psychically & figuratively through time/ & place. The first track Sea Shanty starts off our journey with a mix of field recordings from the boat onto the island, & a selection of conversations/ talking. And the last track Watch Over Us All (which is all meant to be a sonic snapshot of Hebriden live on a Sunday)- brings together at first the sound of the seashore, churchbells, seaculls, cars in the wet, door slammings, footsteps. But fairly soon overloads it’s self in layers talking, sermons, & church singing, etc. The track does return to more natural based bird song elements towards the end, but sadly these don’t last for very long, and once again even these feel like they’ve been layered up.
While I admire & appreciate what Ms Lane is trying to do here, I mostly found the whole thing too dense & layered for it’s own good. Put frankly I found you couldn’t either relax and drift along( as I often like to do with field recording release), or listen to it as sonic documentary( as there are too many layers of other elements present to fully focus concentrate on the texts). I did enjoy the more pared back field recording tracks such Gaoth( Wind) , which as it’s title suggests takes in recordings of the wind blowing across these bleak islands. But mostly the tracks are built around a too dense/ shifting mixture of both field recordings & voice elements.
So in summing ‘The Hebrides Suite’ is another wonderfully presented & visually conceived release from Gruenrekorder, but sadly I found the album it’s self too multi-layered & sonically crowded for it’s own good.