Local music collective Resonance have collaborated with the Essex Record Office to release an album made using sounds from the Record Office’s archives.
Recreating the Record showcases 12 local musicians who sampled sounds from the archives to create a diverse range of electronic music, ranging from ephemeral ambience to beat-driven industrial noise.
With a focus on the future of Essex, Recreating the Record combines the technology of the past with the present. Many of the sound archives are fragile and at-risk – having been initially captured decades ago on reel-to-reel tape or even (in some rare examples) wax cylinders. The heritage of Essex’s sound archives is continually preserved through modern digital methods to ensure they aren’t lost or destroyed. This combination of historic analogue and present digital technology is the focus of the album.
The artists were free to manipulate the original recordings as much as they wanted to create their compositions, using audio processing tools to effect, stretch and warp them into completely different (and often unrecognisable!) sounds. Many of the musicians use analogue electronic synthesizers based on designs from the 1960 and 1970s, and integrate these with digital audio workstations and computer programming to create their music.
The result is a journey that moves between dark, minimal compositions and uplifting passages that highlight the mixed history of Essex. Nostalgic sounds merge with machinery noises reminiscing of Chelmsford’s scientific and industrial heritage. Field recordings capture the Essex countryside and Southend Seafront, combined with introspective electronic melodies. The ambience of Colchester and its famous Zoo blend with trains and sampled orchestral TV programmes – inviting memories of days out around Essex and the journeys these archives capture.
All proceeds are going to the Friends of Historic Essex charity, who work closely with many heritage organisations to preserve Essex’s history.
For more information on the archives, visit Essex Record Office. For a closer look at the archive of sounds then the Essex Record Office have a site at Essex Sounds with an interactive map where each sound was recorded.
Available 15th July 2021.
Tracklist
Joe Thomas – Dismal
Graham Tobias – Field Work
Black Chapel – Still 2
Brokenatoms – Knowledge Binding
Frazer Merrick – Trainscape
Kate Mahoney – Clare
Loula Yorke – Mrs Cranwell’s Driving Test
Nick Smith – Through The Double Fence
Social Conduct – Tools For Turning Adam
Hell Feeder – This Way For The Secret Nuclear Bunker
David Gooday – Small Gun
Silvio Cruz – The Long Journey Home
We asked the artists to provide a few words about their thoughts and processes behind the tracks they made. Here’s what they had to say…..
Graham Tobias:
I chose the recording of Paglesham Seawall by Stuart Bowditch.
It appealed to me because it had elements of nature: wind, birds and insects but also the distant sounds of people and suddenly and rather incongruously a blast of rock n roll.
I improvised electric piano chords on a Yamaha Reface CP over the field recording for the first half of my track, trying to allow space for the natural sounds to pop through.
To this, I added other instruments: electric bass, sweeping Korg Poly 800 pads and other software instruments.
I was aiming for a serene atmosphere but ending with some uncertainty.
This section gives way to a quite different atmosphere. It came by accident: I took a snippet of the rock ‘n’ roll music and processed and smeared it beyond recognition in Ableton. I thought it sounded good so I then combined the same loop in different octaves and faded away the natural sounds. To this sound bed I added sub bass, a clanging gong sample and other synth textures so that one sound didn’t dominate. Finally, I added a percussive loop from a Korg Volca Modular and allowed the natural sounds to return.
I don’t know what any of this means as music making for me is purely instinctive but I hope you enjoy it.
Black Chapel:
With Still 2 the samples were from a mechanical warehouse – very machine-like. The noises reminded me of Isaac Newton’s universe model where everything is boxed, explained and therefore controlled. Post Einstein we now know this is not the case, everything is interdependent. I was trying to add soul to the machine, so to speak.
Frazer Merrick:
Trainscape uses the natural rhythms of a flamboyance of Flamingoes from Colchester Zoo and the unrelating rhythm of a heritage steam train in Epping. After a year of no travelling, I tried to capture the reflective state of being that staring out the window and watching the world whizz by on a train makes me feel.
Kate Mahoney:
Drawing on a field recording of a footpath on the borderlands of Essex and Suffolk, “Clare” captures the soaring feeling of running along a woodland trail; the comforting sense of being both inside and outside generated by the combined shelter of the trees, birdsong, and the encroaching rain.
Nick Smith:
Sounds, possibly more that words or pictures, can evoke very powerful emotions and memories. Oral histories; often people who are probably no longer with us recounting their past, is an invaluable resource, freezing their memories in time. Field recordings of sounds from another era is equally important, industries and facilities that no longer exist. Hopefully ERO will be able to maintain and expand their archive, and this project can play a part in helping that process.
Social Conduct:
As much of our industrial heritage is being lost I wanted to do something to celebrate it. I challenged myself to complete the piece using only sounds found within one sample to create a soundscape of those factories of the past. Where the cyclical repetitive actions of the machines create their own rhythms.
Hell Feeder:
Hell Feeder began with a sample of the plant room at Kelvedon Hatch. Having visited the bunker there a few times, we wanted to keep the sense of claustrophobia that emanated from the experience. Obviously the signposts for Secret Nuclear Bunker have long been a source of amusement as well.
David Gooday:
No computers , Just samples,
always use ,first sounds,
live recording,stereo mix,
Gut instinct,Have fun.
SIlvio Cruz:
The one sample that stuck with me is the train recording with sounds of trains arriving and departing and people waiting at the station. I based my song around the long journey home after a challenging day at work. After splitting up the sample I went about modifying them using Audacity. The background sounds of the trains and announcements are barely altered, I added some firework sounds from another sample and heavily modified them to sound like trains whooshing by. The sounds of people waiting at the station were modified with a phaser effect and some pitch changes to name a few. And of course some reverb, cause everybody loves a good reverb!!!