A New Release!

Yesterday saw the release of a new album, A Város Alszik. The project started after I had become disenchanted with my current VSTs and my deepening habit of using the same ones over and over. I felt I was becoming over-reliant on the wretched things. So at the beginning of the year I stopped for a period whilst I considered what to do. I like making music but I needed a new way to approach it since I felt I had grown stale.

Why not found sounds? I usually added at least one found sound into every piece and occasionally have produced a piece which is only found sounds - but these were usually for projects set by other people such as Cities and Memory. I had released an album back in September 2016 called Metallic Earth which used only the sound of metal objects but that was my only "proper" venture into musique concréte.

Now I had always been interested in musique concréte. In the 70s I'd heard recordings of Pierre Schaeffer, for instance, and there was Halim El-Dabh who had released The Expression of Zaar in 1944. What fascinated me, and still does, is the manipulation of everyday sounds into something new which hadn't been heard before. But there had been a small documentary I watched when I was a lad in the 70s about how Delia Derbyshire had realised the Doctor Who theme by Ron Grainer at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She had used ordinary objects as well as oscilloscopes and filtered white noise, amongst other things. It also mentioned how Brian Hodgson had created the TARDIS materialisation noise using a key and the strings of a piano. Well I was hooked.

So in January I decided to record an album which used objects found around the house as the sound sources and over the next two months I slowly started to record the tracks. It was an interesting experience trying to get as many different sounds from a milk bottle, for instance. There were many pieces that just didn't work or after reflection sounded awful (to my ears at least).

With the tracks slowly coming together I needed to name them. This is something I always struggle with. The first piece I had completed was originally called Seax, which is a type of knife and also what the Saxons named themselves after. I posted this on SoundCloud in early February but I wasn't happy with the name. So I started looking at the word "knife" in other languages. Eventually I hit upon the Hungarian word, "kés", which I liked. It also sounded like a character's name. So the idea was born for a sort of concept-album set in Budapest in perhaps the 1930s - a sort of film noir thriller with the track titles giving a rough indication to the action, although what other people get from it is down to them of course.

I deliberately kept the number of sound sources small (nine items in all) because I will want to carry on with the Found Sound Series, as I've decided to call it, and also I wanted a connecting sound theme running through the album. Plus it was an experiment bigger than I had done before and I was uncertain what the results would be. The last piece was finished on the day of release and was the title track. I also decided to include three tracks using Hungarian composers work.

The tracks and objects used on the album are as follows:

1. A Város Alzik, "The City Sleeps". This uses a zither and a kitchen knife. The music was composed by Jenő Hubay (1858-1937), 3 Morceaux, Op.52, No.2 "Menuet"

2. Álom #1, "Dream No.1". This uses the zither, a female voice and the sound of the staircase in my house.

3. Foul Deeds at the Kerepesi Cemetery. This uses the sound of a broadsword. The Kerepesi Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Budapest.

4. Midnight Dance. This uses the zither, kitchen knife, plastic orange juice bottle and a toilet roll. The music was composed by Bálint Bakfark (1506-1576) and is a galliard called Non dit mai which I slowed down.

5. Kés at the Néprajzi Múzeum at night. This uses the kitchen knife as it's sound source. It was the piece which kicked the whole project off. The choice of the Néprajzi Múzeum was completely random.

6. Hydria at Mátyás kútja. This piece uses a saucepan of water hit with a wooden spoon. This Matthias Fountain in Budapest was made by Alajos Stróbi and inaugurated by King Franz Joseph in 1904. It depicts a hunting party led by King Matthias Corvinus (Hunyadi Mátyás). The name Hydria comes from the Latin for water-jug.

7. "There's Something in Népliget Park!". This uses the sound of a boiling kettle as its source. Népliget Park is the biggest public park in Budapest.

8. Álom #2. This uses the plastic orange juice bottle as the sound source.

9. Count Ferenc Szécsi de Rimaszécs. This uses the zither as its sound source. The House of Szécsi were a Hungarian noble family who held high offices in the royal court in the 13th-15th centuries.

10. Waiting on Andrássy út. This one uses the sound of the staircase in my house. Andrássy út is a boulevard in Budapest which was opened in 1876. These days it is one of the main shopping streets in Budapest.

11. Near the Művész Kávéház. This track uses the zither and the kitchen knife. The coffee house was built in 1884 and was designed by Ray Rezső. The piece is based on a folk melody composed by Béla Bartók (1881-1945).

12. Álom #3. This uses the zither, plastic orange juice bottle, milk bottle, broadsword and the knife.

13. Kofavonat (early morning). "Milk run". This uses the sound a milk bottle.

14. Budapest Alszik. "Budapest sleeps". This uses the sound of the staircase, boiling kettle, zither, kitchen knife, saucepan of water and milk bottle.