(Diatribe Records)
Free jazz, opera, hymns, punk and newscasts intermingle in an oddly compelling sonic collage addressing issues of asylum and migration
Anyone who has heard the Beatles’ Revolution No 9 will be familiar with musique concrète: a compositional style based around the manipulation of existing recordings and found sounds, one pioneered by the likes of Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Sovereign Bodies/Ritual Taxonomy is very much a sound collage in this vein: a jarring sonic montage assembled by Belfast-based composer Jamie Thompson featuring snatches of free jazz, opera, hip-hop, electronica, spoken word and broadcast news. It sounds like someone maniacally dialling between multiple stations on multiple radios.
Crucially, however, these disparate snippets of music have been specifically recorded for this project. And, as the album progresses, you realise that it is not random or formless, but a virtual audio drama themed around asylum and migration, displacement and assimilation, detention centres and perilous boat journeys. The few male voices here represent bureaucratic authority; the rest are female voices of resistance. The spoken-word poet Felicia Olusanya serves as a kind of narrator; the voice of operatic soprano Amy Ní Fhearraigh is put on to dubplates and manipulated by turntablist Mariam Rezaei; saxophonist Catherine Sikora Mingus howls over a doomy gothic chorale.
Continue reading...by John Lewis via Electronic music | The Guardian
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