Geräuschmusik Basel

Eschatology – featuring Peter Blegvad - explores endings: the end of land where we take to ships, the end of radio contact where white noise fills the receiver; the end of individual sounds as they echo and decay in diverse locations. It explores historical doctrines of The End, from the physician Hermann von Helmholtz in 1854, to Ragnarök in Norse mythology. 

“A liner at sea, heading for a port which no longer exists. Gradual realization among passengers that they’ve escaped a general devastation, but they might be the last human beings on earth.” 

Home-made electronic instruments and vintage tape machines are deployed to develop the sonorities derived from field recordings made in Bergen, Norway.

Eschatology - extract

Philip Tagney's winning remix from the Inspired By Martinu remix competition: "I particularly like Martinu’s superb orchestral music: the short & catchy cell-like melodic motifs which seem to have roots in Czech folk music, the rhythmic drive, and the masterly orchestration, so clear and colourful.   I wanted to draw attention to the wealth of invention in this movement from the 4th symphony, by focussing on a just a few of the many lovely moments, using repetition and elaboration, and allowing them to go into slightly fantastical areas that the orchestra could hardly play in reality. It seems absurd temerity to remix such a masterwork, but I hope that my remix expresses my pleasure in Martinu’s music, which might encourage people to seek out more of Martinu’s unique voice."
http://www.inspiredbymartinu.co.uk/remix/

Martinu Remixed by Philip Tagney

Langham Research Centre's 2005 collaboration with Peter Blegvad explores isolation, as the protagonist attempts to break the world record for the length of time spent in an isolation tank. The programme features radiophonic sound made on reel-to-reel tape, and readings by Nick Cave. Broadcast in BBC Radio 3's Between The Ears strand.

Guest+Host=Ghost - full programme

An illustrated talk featuring musique concrete by Langham Research Centre and narration by Anthony Sellors.

Dining Alone

Langham Research Centre pay tribute to a composer who has had a significant impact on their work. Pierre Henry contributed meaningfully to the idea that all and any sounds are material for making music and the way he did this can be heard in the music of the LRC. Collage, superimposition, hard jump cuts and sudden intense clashes all feature. Also important is the use of electronic sound. Henry’s colleague Pierre Schaeffer disapproved of sources that he didn’t consider to be natural sound. Pierre Henry embraced electronic as well as concrete sounds.

Commissioned by BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, this homage is in the form of a musique concrète suite comprising five movements: 1. The Cuckoo Bird 2. Little Pagan Rites 3. Communion et la Mort 4. Nematode Worms 5. Tokyo Demolition. 

The starting point for this homage was a wide selection of Pierre Henry’s work including Symphonie pour un Homme Seul, Le Voyage, Messe de Liverpool, Une Tour de Babel and Tokyo 2000.

Homage To Pierre Henry

An extract from OBAMIX, Langham Research Centre & Alwynne Pritchard's musique-concrete chorale. The piece examines the rhetorical flourishes of the speech-maker, drawing its libretto from three of Barack Obama's defining speeches. It invites us to question the assumed choreography of oration, and how our physical bodies serve our words.

Fragment, from OBAMIX

Langham Research Centre (Felix Carey, Iain Chambers, Philip Tagney, Robert Worby) create new music from vintage analogue devices: open-reel tape, sine wave oscillators, phonograph cartridges and other discarded technology. langhamresearch@gmail.com

Langham Research Centre

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