Folklore Tapes – BIRDomenlore

Folklore Tapes – BIRDomenlore

Folklore Tapes – BIRDomenlore

posted by dfbm | Write a Comment

# avantgarde, psych folk, electronic, ambient, field recording, ritual

Folklore Tapes is a music, art and research project from Great Britain that leaves me back with many questions that I don't want to get answered.
There is a mystery around them or him (the blog is connected with the name David Chatton Barker) and probably on can add them to that so called Hautology movement (see more links at the end of the post).

Folklore Tapes released some really nice, limited, hand made treasures and I am glad they put their releases on bandcamp, too.

So for me the most interesting release is the plain looking and non-descriptive BIRDomenlore

It's a single 26 minutes track segmented in about 10 themes. The best way to descibe the musical content is a chain of genres. So here we go, expect some Cinematic Psych-Folktronica-Field-Recording-Chamber-Music for Rituals.

Yes, this music must describe some kind of an ritual with it's monotone, repetive passages, and the trance like atmosphere and the slow shifting moods. It sounds like a metamorphosis into a bird, or better the calling of an ancient pagan bird god.

This piece starts eager with a light wind section and some sequencing or samples and shifts quickly in to a drumming section accompanied by a sinister sounding melodie and many birds that seem to gather on a tree nearby.

The third part is the one I always come back to - it's a naive melodie played on a synthesizer and on top of a very neat sequencing of bird calls, that sounds sometimes like the birdsong from a starling. It also recalls the crispy electronics from early, early Múm.
I would claim the bird sounds in this part are synthetic, played by a software synthesizer something like these.
But the beauty is, it all sounds very organic and natural and warm.

So this goes on, minimal synth patterns, artificial birds, stange states of mind, familiar sounds and changes.

The trip ends with a light melody, maybe taken from a fairytale movie, more birds and a laughing child...

BIRDomenlore is great trip music and evokes lot of images in front of your inner eye. At the same time you can listen to it to some academic tonal research or as mentioned before, a Chamber musical, avantgarde piece.

I have to mention the work of Iranian composer Dariush Dolat-Shahi with the album Electronic Music, Tar and Sehtar which works in a similar way like this Folklore Tapes piece.

Dariush Dolat-Shahi – Hur (Tar and Electronic)

Download this document for a small price and dive into the mysteries of Great Britain. This is a whole world to discover!

Here is some more related stuff:

all images from the folklore tapes blog

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