Stephen Cornford — Music For Earbuds

I’ve got a couple of Stephen Cornford releases, both of which concern themselves with the sounds of audio equipment and “Music For Earbuds” obviously stands in that tradition. From the inlay: “These pieces were assembled exclusively from unprocessed acoustic recordings of the feedback between a single earbud headphone and a cassette walkman tape head.” Cornford then edited and layered these sounds into the five untitled tracks (marked by duration only) on the album.

I’m a big fan of this kind of conceptual, maximalist approach: taking one object and extracting as much “sound” as possible from it. It has a purity which appeals, as well as being an opportunity to really test technique and imagination. However, it also runs the risk of producing something cold and unapproachable, something thats conceptually clever-clever but actually unlistenable: ivory tower recordings. Luckily, this is not an issue for Cornford. In the pieces I’ve previously heard, there’s always an unmistakably musical ear at work and these recordings are no different. Working with such a starkly limited set-up, Cornford conjures forth a wide, rich sound-world; without recourse to “cheap” noise or drone. The first piece, “03’ 13””, is a wonderful rattling drone; with a fizzing kineticism akin to a marble circling in a jar. Following this, “06’ 34”” grates against the ears - in the most pleasant way - with a ringing swirl that manages to be both ethereal and metallic. The third and longest track, “15’ 17””, is a somewhat unusual centrepiece for the album. Surrounded by abstraction and essentially hard-boiled sounds and ideas, this piece constructs a vibrant eco-system of insects, birds and amphibians - it sounds exactly like a field recording. Technically, this is obviously very impressive; but whats also remarkable is that Cornford holds the listener’s attention for its duration, given that the entire track can be seen as a “clever”, one-trick construction. This tour-de-force casts a somewhat lessening shadow over the last two tracks, to the extent that they might have been better received before it. “03’ 05”” is a short, buzzing, resonant piece that flits from speaker to speaker - possibly escaped bees from the previous track; whilst “06’ 13”” pursues very similar territory in some ways, but raises the skree ante considerably. At its highest points, it resembles a tortured violin (I say this as a compliment) transforming into a jet plane; with jagged electro-detritus flailing around it. Yet again, you can’t fail but be impressed by Cornford’s creative exploration and careful construction.
 
This is another great work from Stephen Cornford, rigorous and clever without forgetting to charm the ear. Anyone with an interest in abstract sound or electro-acoustic pieces should find much to digest here. If there is one criticism or question mark, its the artwork for the release. The other Cornford works I have, extend the rigour of the audio plane to the visual plane; with smart, distinctive art that befits the sounds within. “Music For Earbuds’, however, has rather curious photographic work. Simply put, its a series of close-ups of constituent parts of an earbud headphone, perfectly fine as they stand; but they seem to have been rather crudely edited and processed, most notably having odd “shadows” added. I use speech-marks, because the shadows look much more like damp patches. Its so strikingly odd, that the first reaction is that it must be a coherent part of Cornford’s work; but my gut reaction is that it isn’t, alas. Regardless, this is a great piece of work.