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"Airport Symphony"
Travel as a theme in art is practically as old as whatever art form in question itself. The idea of moving from a known place to a foreign one can be seen as fascinating, alienating, exciting, and completely frightening. Those adjectives are also surprisingly well fitting to describe this compilation as well. Though it is focused on traveling by plane, the same feelings are there and, just like a flight, it is fascinating, interesting, and yes, occasionally boring and mundane.
The artists were all asked to integrate field recordings created by Room40 label head Lawrence English of the Brisbane International Airport. While these recordings need not be the sole content of the recordings, they were supposed to be a notable element of the final tracks. The participant list reads like a veritable who's who of current electronic composers: David Grubbs, Francisco Lopez, David Grubbs, Christian Fennesz, etc. They all use the various flight recordings to very different effects, all of which are consistent with their own styles.
As I indicated before, the music reflects the multiple emotions one can feel as an air traveler. Richard Chartier's contribution, "Retrieval_Path," taps in to the fascination that is flight: subtle treatments of engine noise reduced to high pitch digital tones, layered into rhythmic rings that are gentle, yet complex. Taylor Deupree's "Fear of Flying" takes the travel concept to a more literal end, the opening of crowd noises and people talking are just like the pre-flight conversations expected from a plane, distant flight information over a loud speaker as chiming digital tones enter the mix, and eventually dominate the mix, mimicking the mechanical roars and hums of a plane as it takes off into the sky.
Christian Fennesz also takes a more musical approach, shaping layered tracks of processed engine noise into vaguely musical structures, and adding in snippets of dialog to add to the proceedings. Marc Beherens is more cinematic with "3 Winged Zones," the sounds of engines powering up and wind pushed into overdrive to create thick walls of dense noise over phased tones, then stripped down to a more moderate level, with tones like distant warning beacons (or even crickets) in the distance.
As aforementioned, at times flight can be frightening, and Christopher Willits contribution "Plane" is the best example of that. Opening with very little more than the narration of flight attendants giving the preflight instructions over an intercom, the mundane elements of the preflight ritual before launching head first into a wall of noise and distortion that is shocking as an actual plane crash would be. Similarly, Toshiya Tsunoda's "Peak to Peak" is also a jarring experience. On the surface the name could represent travel from one mountain to another, but I assume it is more specifically leveled at the landscape of a digital representation for the track: Long gaps of near silence are met with harsh outbursts of noise, acting as the visual representation of said peaks.
Flights can be boring as well, and a few of the tracks do not feel as if they go too far beyond the source material to be as captivating as the more outstanding ones. The track by Burkhard Beins, "Tarmac Berlin Edit," treats the passing of planes overhead with so little that it does not feel as if there was anything really changed from the initial recordings. Jason Kahn's "Transit" has a similar feel, with only basic filtering/eq'ing of engine noise over simple, sustained digital tones. Nothing about the less fascinating tracks is bad; it is more a factor of being lined up with the more interesting ones being a detriment. And, hey, in travel there are some places that one is extremely excited to go, and others are just a destination.
Airport Symphony makes for an interesting work on both a conceptual, and an entertaining level. While by its very nature it is somewhat esoteric and difficult, the thematic link of concepts makes it one that more people can relate to from previous experience, and should use that background to check it out and give it a try, because it is a very well done and remarkable compilation.
samples:
- Richard Chartier - Retrieval_Path
- Marc Beherens - 3 Winged Zone
- Fennesz - Verona
