Francisco López & Lawrence English — HB
Most impactful, partly because it comes first and serves to prime the listener for what follows, is López’ ‘Untitled #175’ originally recorded in Costa Rica in 2001 and edited and mastered three years’ later. Typically enigmatic, there is no further information provided about the recording which places the listener in a meadow buzzing with the activities of insects and birds. However, this is not your regular field recording: central to the piece is an omnipresent snoring or shuffling at the lower end that initially sets the brain into a frantic attempt to determine its source in an otherwise recognisable garden of sounds. It could be that somehow a microbic microphone was placed onto, say, a dragonfly as it surveys its natural habitat, letting the listener experience what vibrating wings sound like from the insect’s point of view. Or has a small contact mic been fixed into a particularly popular flower whose over-flowing pollen chamber attracts a queue of bees keen to carry it’s sperm to female plants? Whatever it is, the bombination never stops but is continuously fluctuating with a natural purpose, like the sniffing of a dog or foraging of an ant, zig-zagging the stereo path, always positioned in the foreground. And yet, once you stop trying to identify it you begin to assimilate the events as pure sound revealing the interplay of the natural rhythms of an environment untainted by man, the lead sound as a navigator of an abundant realm.
Lawrence English manipulates this remarkable journey in such a way as to retain many of its recognisable elements resulting in a repeat journey, but this time the experience feels opiated. The birds still twitter, the bees keep buzzing, but through English’s processing they have an alien, unnerving edge. A few minutes in and there’s a sudden blast of air like the spraying of a turbulent waterfall which is cut as quickly as it appeared to reveal an even woozier field inverting the dynamic range of López’ original. After a further segment that has a drowned feel as the air pressure in our ears is compacted camouflaging the insect life, we’re finally brought back into the open air, heralded by birdsong so heavily emphasised that it takes on a chill of Hitchcockian proportions.
For his original contribution, English’s ‘Wire Fence Upon Opening’ recorded on the far eastern edge of Australia in 2006, somehow has a much more urban feel compared to HB’s opener, despite it also seeming to be an unedited environmental recording that shares a backdrop of birdsong and a lack of clues as to its source. It’s centred around crispy, bristling movements like the fluttering activity in an aviary all lightly bathed in reverb. On HB’s final track, López amplifies this prickly ruffling and detunes it, bringing it even closer and, in doing so, creating the panic stricken heartbeat of an escape attempt. This intense chase ripping through dry grass stops suddenly as cleaner, animalistic movements in English’s recording are magnified along with a low end rumble of air that shudders and quakes.
Due to the nature of the work, it is essential that listening sessions are unecumbered by any other noise or other sensual stimulation that could interfere with its allure – much like López’ performances where blindfolds are handed out to the audience who sit with their backs to the performer. This unsociable concentration is an essential part of the process started by López and English through their turn-taking collaboration. Despite this indirect, unintegrated style of working and a focus on random events, the release is strongly coherent as a whole providing large doses of intrigue and wonder that is greatly rewarded through repeated listens.