#soundandspace

I decided to make a gospel song, or at least my little version of a highbrow version of one. It was inspired by Corinthians 12:10: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”  When I was a kid, I’d always get into trouble because I had issues, and as punishment for my little outbursts, I would get beaten… but I’d also have to rewrite the bible in English and Spanish. Anyways, to make a long, traumatic story short, Corinthians 12:10 has always hit me in the chest like an ancestral dagger.

This song is a cathartic victimhood battle cry; a space for me to suffer unapologetically, on a psychedelic, lush landscape. I know there’s always going to be someone out there worse off than me, but at this moment in time, I’m having the worst day of my life. I look back at my life and realize how awful it has been for me, whether it’s been my fault or not. I think strength shouldn’t be associated with victories because, for most of us, strength is found through our survival despite surrender. I want to be a victim without the stigma of surviving because at least I know I pushed through.

The productions lean heavily into Musique Concrete; It’s not about perfection, it’s about presence, it’s about being alive, embracing noise, while saturating the beauty. When I started making this song, I didn’t want to glorify conquering pain because it always leaves a stain on your painting and a clipping noise on your audio. Instead, I wanted to celebrate the act of standing 10 toes down in the eye of the storm and saying, “I’m not strong, I am weak.”  And letting the orchestra just rain on me. The song is aggressive, but soft and psychedelic, C#m1210.

Anyway, here's a picture I took of me last night

When you find yourself lost in a labyrinth-like museum, strolling through a grand lobby, or spitting from the 40th floor of your favorite skyscraper rooftop, your senses become tuned to architecture in ways that are not so easily explained, but nonetheless relevant to our appreciation of it.

  Max cooper was challenged by Magnetic magazine to create a EDM Dj mix that corresponds with the ways we experience the space that is the British museum.  Cooper can be called something of a sound scientist and a soundscape engineer none the less. Max, who has been producing music since 2007, has a PhD in computational biology from Nottingham University and became a geneticist at University College London. He has released over fifty original tracks, and has remixed the work of avant-garde composer Michael Nyman, Hot Chip, Agoria, Dominik Eulberg and many more. Needless to say, there really isn’t a better person to set the bar for this elusive task.

  “I mixed it in a way to be like a journey though the museum, turning corners and regularly coming across something totally different and unexpected, with each track being like a different exhibit.”

    Blesser and Salter, the authors of Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? commented that; “…aural architecture refers to the properties of a space that can be experienced by listening.” And it “…can stimulate anxiety, tranquility, socialization, isolation, frustration, fear, boredom, aesthetic pleasure and so on.”Tuning in to this aural architecture leads to “auditory spatial awareness,” and can affect things social behavior, our perception of space, our ability to navigate and “enhance our experience of music and voice.” It is this awareness that appears to be the initial point of departure for Max whose mix is inspired by the British Museum (established in 1753) featuring a rare combination of 12th century Tibetan monks, one of the first ever recordings of music made by Thomas Edison in 1888, poetic spoken word, a 9th century Gregorian Chant, some unreleased exclusives, 9/8 techno, traditional Chinese music, rude glitch and a few of his released staples.

What i particular like at this work is that Max has the exciting prospect of making people who might not have already done think about the connections of sound to our everyday lives. I myself am especially interested in the unheard mundane bleeps, the shutting of car doors and the running water of the tap in the morning. However i also want to participate in researching to sound in different ways through looking at volume, tonality, etc. I hope to earn more about its effect on our lives and the wider world.