Name: Herding Elephants by Corrie Dick
Duration: 3 min 25 s
Description: The only remaining demo track I could salvage from a whole set of new music I had composed on my stolen laptop.

My first public attempt with the first of the hardingfele Rammeslått tunes from the magical valley of Setesdal. 
Recorded live with a Zoom during a concert of the contemporary music group NEO Suomi at the artArctica festival, 13.2.2016. Vapaan Taiteen Tila, Helsinki. 
Electronics by Hugh Sheehan.
Hardingfele by Einar Løndal, 1975; mounted entirely with gut strings, tuned at A=415Hz.

Rammeslått I

Recorded over one day on Good Friday 2015, the improvised session was essentially stripped back to drums and jaw harp for the most part. The recording is a document to an ethos of exploration and communication with the tracks ranging from snippets, utterances that pass by briefly, to pieces that gain traction wandering into highly rhythmical, motoric territories. 

Explicit in the approach is an inherent curiosity to sound and the extensive manner to which their instruments are played. The recording of this live, real time gathering finds the duo exploring a range of possibilities, from bringing everything down to concentrated subtle sections of sound-making to Seb’s flowing execution accompanied by droned notes of jaw harp and the uncanny vocal hum that ghosts its playing. The rarely heard jaw harp baths the session in an ‘otherness’ that encompasses minimalist meditations to boisterous incantations. 

Multi instrumentalist David Coulter is in the midst of a rich and varied career. From solo recording and collaborations with artists as varied as Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Anderson and Damon Albarn to his work as musical director for large international productions, among them Monkey Journey To The West, various Hal Wilner projects and more recently, In Dreams, David Lynch Revisited at the Barbican and elsewhere. David’s reputation for specialising in instruments perhaps viewed as esoteric, such as the saw, didgeridoo and jaw harp have found him much in demand. His charismatic and generous live performances are often steeped in improvisation and his ability to react to other musicians always delivers something unique and enlightening. 

Seb Rochford is widely regarded as one of the most sought after and innovative drummers working today. His collaborations over the years are extensive and such projects as Days and Nights at the Takeaway found Seb instigating an environment to experiment with invited musicians over a twelve month period. Of recent years Seb has been predominantly associated with Polar Bear, a band whose multifaceted recordings have garnered much critical praise as well as two Mercury music prize nominations. It’s here that the desire to combine jazz with digital and electro approaches have found his largest audience. As with David Coulter, Seb’s generous attitude and commitment to his instrument has been in regular demand by other musicians over the years including luminaries such as David Byrne and Brian Eno.

Good Friday 7, David Coulter and Seb Rochford

The only remaining demo track I could salvage from a whole set of new music I had composed on my stolen laptop.

Herding Elephants

Corrie Dick

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