Clang Sayne's Sounding Seams EP is the final output from a project that began in 2018 when the Irish National Heritage Park in Wexford invited me (Laura Hyland) to make an artwork in response to the ancient art of metal forgery.

Taking inspiration from a myth about Pythagoras' encounter with a blacksmith and his ensuing vision of a musical cosmos (the music of the spheres), I disappeared down a rabbit hole of cosmic esoterica, home-made chimes and the harmonic series. 40-odd DIY chimes, a giant chime sculpture, a baby, and a pandemic later, I finally got to make some music:

These four songs explore themes of chaos, order and the mystery of the cosmos, and were recorded live in the Crannog (a prehistoric circular mud building) of the Heritage Park in June 2022. They feature my dear and long-standing Clang Sayne collaborators, Carolyn Goodwin (woodwinds) & Matthew Jacobson (drums), guest player, Caimin Gilmore (double bass), and the many birds, park visitors and motorists of the neighbouring N11 bypass.

Both the album artwork (microscopic photos of metal) and the title, 'Sounding Seams' refer to Pythagoras' conviction that if the mysterious properties of harmonic order & beauty are intrinsic to crude metal, hewn from a seam of the Earth, then they must also apply to the cosmos at large, and everything within it.

Sounding Seams

From A Galaxy Of Dust We Were Unspun

A Restless Wanderer of the Earth

A Restless Wanderer Of The Earth

The Great Sea of Unknown

The Great Sea Of Unknown

Music of the Spheres

Music Of The Spheres

'The Round Soul of the World' is the forthcoming album from Clang Sayne. 

This Love

The Round Soul Of The World

The Emptying Of The Ashes

Requiem

Newborn

Curse You Mocking Moon

Blackbird

Bric - A-Brac

Described as ‘venturers in the post-genre slip stream, weaving folk, improv, art pop and contemporary classical into new material that is soft on the ear but tough as leather.’ (Cormac Larkin, Irish Times). 

Clang Sayne was founded by Irish composer, Laura Hyland in 2008 to channel myriad musical influences into her ‘songscapes’. The current line up of players include Laura (compositions, voice, chimes & guitar), Caimin Gilmore (double bass, voice), Carolyn Goodwin (clarinets, voice) and Matthew Jacobson (drums, voice).

The most recent album 'The Round Soul of the World' was recorded and released in Ireland in 2017 and the debut album,'Winterlands' in London in 2009. They are currently working on a new body of music, based around a collection of very big chimes which Laura made from scrap metal in 2018.

They have featured in the Wire Magazine, BBC & Resonance FM (UK), the Journal of Music, Lyric FM & RTE Radio1 (Irl), WFMU (NYC), and tour within the international experimental music scene.

Clang Sayne

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