I'm reminded of the artist Jean Tinguely who used to build crazy machines which had the sole purpose of destroying themselves. This is like a musical equivalent of that.

Enjoying this a lot..it got a lovely strange vibe to it....minimalist loop music at it best ......

A short 1/8 inch tape loop of music recorded for the Surface Tension project was soaked in a sample of River Lea water – duckweed, dissolved pollutants, oil slicks, dead leaves and all – for a month.

When played back over half an hour, the tape began to disintegrate and shear off, creating subtle new textures, melodies and rhythms.

Inspired by William Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops', but applied to see how the polluted 'river' would fracture and disintegrate the recorded sound.

http://surfacetension.org.uk/

Tape Loop soaked in River Lea water and falling apart

WA 2010_017_155 C10, Coal Tit, Wales, 1988

WA 2010_017_169 C5, Whimbrel, Scotland, 1989

WA 2010_017_172 C1, Common Whitethroat, England, 1985

Surface Tension is a field recording, photography and writing project by Rob St. John exploring the River Lea in East London.

Book / CD release and exhibition at Stour Space, Hackney Wick in April 2015.

Commissioned by Thames 21 'Fixing Broken Rivers' project in Summer 2014.

Sound map: http://mapmaker.donkeymagic.co.uk/map/26860



Tape Loop soaked in River Lea water and falling apart

Surface Tension River Lea

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