Well, I think I have my head around this one? Someone called The Doomed Bird Of Providence made a record based on Cyclone Mahina (well received by W&H and elsewhere) in Australia in 1899. Then this fella Kemper Norton has come along and reinterpreted that work.
The music is based on manipulation of found sound and synthesis of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Another way of describing it would be ambient but I am sure that’s a dirty word by now. Another way of describing it would be droning and spacey.
Departing utilises a vaguely computerised and monotone female voice to good effect. It’s essentially a list of names that connect the story and comes off kinda like a trippy shipping forecast.
Meeting is my favourite and easily retains my interest over eight minutes mainly due to the breaks, changes and melodies built into the track. If Departing is supposed to be about boats then really it is Meeting that conjures up to me being lost at sea. At one point I can even hear the beams on the boat creaking and listening to it I get visions of the Marie Celeste. It is a hallucinatory piece.
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In Working, a man sings to himself and the music takes a more low key role, a bit of a shanty this one. Ending is nine whole minutes of almost transcendental sound that seems to border on breakdown most of the way through. It is sharper and more insistent in tone and seems to nag away at you, itself, and everything else. Something is coming.
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