BILOCATION - THE SOUNDS Steve Marshall
1) Rain in my backyard in Leytonstone, East London. Mixed with rain hitting a roof window.
2) Banana grove in Kerala, South India. Recorded at dawn, with mics clipped to a towel rolled up to head size and balanced on a rock. The crudest dummy head I've made. The music is a metalophone that I played with my hands, recorded in a friend's cottage in deepest Wales.
3) The overtone singing is me, recorded in an empty church in Wiltshire. The church is Saxon - 1000 years old, but there is evidence to suggest that the site has been sacred for at least twice that time. It's hardly used, and so has no clutter in it. It also has non-parallel walls that give it a unique and beautiful reverb. The recorded stream is near the church. The thunderstorm was recorded near my cottage when I first moved to Wiltshire. I heard it starting, and saw the sky blacken, so grabbed a brolly and my recording gear. The screams are my neighbours' children, who got very excited. I set off toward the fields, and the storm got nearer. It culminated in a lightning strike in the middle of a field, only about twenty feet from me. It was then that I realised lightning is very dangerous…
4) Traffic in Leytonstone. Recorded out of my window on midsummer's day, at 7am. Mixed with it is the police helicopter, which was always hovering menacingly over Leytonstone. The chanting was recorded inside the Great Temple in Madurai, South India. The temple is huge, and covered in lurid painted carvings of the Hindu Pantheon. Parts of it are open to courtyards, and noisy parrots fly around them.
5) 'Flight' is a piece of music that I recorded during a very strange period in Wiltshire. It's played on E-Bowed guitars, and is the last thing I ever did with my Tascam analogue 8-track. The clicking is claves in the old church. Individual hits were recorded in different positions that went in a zig-zag pattern across the space. They were then edited in sequence, to a rhythm taken from a recording of a bouncing ball. Mixed with this is a 'grass dance' performed in a festival in Kerala. The recording was made by my friend, the late Richard Keefe. Richard was a film maker who made many programmes in India, and encouraged me to go there. At the end of this section, the Indian Ocean appears in the rear speakers.
6) After living away for a very long time, I went to my home town of Hull, Yorkshire, for the annual fair. The fair is as big as a small town. I recorded binaurally with mics attached to my head, and went on lots of rides. This sequence is in Walton Street - the main route into the fair, which is lined with stalls and hawkers. The synths were recorded in an empty concrete garage, which eventually became my studio. It's a Roland SH101 played through amps at opposite ends of the space, and an ping-pong echo between them. There's also an E-Bowed guitar played through the same setup. The Indian folk group was recorded in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The fireworks are November 5th on the Wanstead Flats, an open green space in Leytonstone.
7) George was a lovely big horse that I used to ride when I lived in London. His owner was hospitalised when she got terminal cancer, so for her I recorded George riding her favourite route in Epping Forest. This is George galloping up a hill called the Rifle Butts. The rooks are in Wiltshire. The singing girl was recorded in The Ibrahim Roza, a beautiful building in Bijapur, Karnataka. It is said to have been the prototype for the Taj Mahal.
8) The Wall of Death is my favourite fairground attraction. Motorbikes race around the inside walls of a fifty foot cylinder. I was at the top, looking into the cylinder, with mics on my head. I think the bike is an old Indian.
9) Pedal steel guitar played by Nick Evans. It was recorded in my studio, with me playing a synth pad. Then it was played back in the old church, with a ping-pong echo that bounced between speakers placed across the width of the church. The church has no electricity, and I was recording on a gloomy winter's afternoon. As it got darker, the acoustics seemed to change and I realised it was snowing heavily outside. The horse is Oscar - a Welsh/Arab - named after a classic British synthesiser. He was being ridden around a huge empty grain-drying shed near the church. This is mixed with my friend Chris chopping wood in a farmyard that had a natural echo. The snatches of Indian radio were recorded off a transistor in South India, edited, and played back and re-recorded in different spaces - my studio, the old church. In the rear speakers is a storm that was rumbling on the horizon over the Arabian Sea, at Cochin, South India.
10) My friend Andy Evans was at the Glastonbury Festival with his portable DAT, when he happened to call at the stone circle. 30 didgeridoo players started jamming, with many more people playing percussion. In the rear speakers are skylarks, which sing in flight. They are normally found in open fields in the country, but these were recorded at sunrise on midsummer's morning in Leytonstone, East London. Mixed with the didges is a Karnatic folk group that were playing in a park in Bijapur. They are playing a kind of clarinet, about 5' long. I was on my way to catch a train, so never found out who they were. The recording was very painful, as I had to sit still for a long time, and soon realised I was sat above a nest of fire ants.
11) Whilst on an overnight steam train from Kerala to Tamil Nadu, the train stopped at a tiny country station somewhere near Tanjore. My carriage had open windows and I started to record the night insects. Just as I started, another steam train pulled slowly alongside and stopped. The passengers can be heard chatting (and spitting out of the windows). This is mixed with a recording of me overtone singing in the old church in Wiltshire.
12) More of the synths and E Bow in my empty garage studio, with crotales recorded in the old church (again with the bouncing ball trick). The weird kid that flies around the room was recorded in one of the cars of a fairground ride at Hull Fair. I guess he was about 12, and had been allowed on the mic. He had all his own patter worked out, and thought he was very cool.
13) A montage sequence of Indian traffic. In India, the rule seems to be: blow your horn if you see anyone. As the place is so over-populated, this means constant racket. The singing is from a very loud PA system outside a Hindu temple. Some of the traffic was recorded from inside a motor-rickshaw in Delhi, the rest in the South. The very loud horn at the end was a big truck passing through Tanjore at 2am. I guess he saw someone…
14) Another of the little girls singing in the Ibrahim Roza, Bijapur. Mixed with more of the Wiltshire electrical storm. This is the bit where I nearly got blown up.
15) 'To See' was a film made by Tony Hill - a very long time ago. It was the first film I ever made music for. I made a set of tape loops: single notes on piano, mandolin, voice etc that would make simple chords when played together. Four speakers were attached to a 10' cross made of ladders and hung from the ceiling. The cross was spun around, while the loops played. A dummy head was placed in the middle, and the loops play a tune as they pass the mics. Mixed with this is chanting in the Great Temple at Madurai.
16) My favourite ever acoustic is the Golgumbaz, in Bijapur, Karnataka. It's the 2nd biggest dome in the world - 38 metres across. The building is open at the bottom on all four sides, and swallows fly through, twittering. At the top is a 'whispering gallery' which has a natural repeat echo of about half a second. The echo is said to repeat 12 times. Everyone that visits shouts and claps - no whispering at all. This recording was made in the top gallery, and is mixed with loops from 'To See'.
17) Silbury Hill is a huge, man made mound, near Avebury in Wiltshire. It is 4800 years old. In the years that summer solstice gatherings were banned at Stonehenge, many people used to go to Avebury instead. Some would go on top of Silbury to celebrate the solstice. This usually involved partying all night on top of the hill, then watching the sunrise. As usual in Wiltshire, this event was accompanied by 'musicians' playing traditional English instruments, such as Didgeridoos and Djembes. In May 2000 though, a huge hole appeared in the top of the hill. The hole got bigger due to lots of rain, (and some idiots moving the cover so they could abseil down inside the hill). Now no-one is allowed on top of Silbury, and English Heritage still haven't filled the hole in after four years. This recording is of the moment the sun came up on the 1996 solstice. The plane that flies over is an RAF Hercules transporter. They are a familiar sight in Wiltshire, as their base is there.
18) More of 'Flight' mixed with a recording made at the bottom of the Golgumbaz dome. The swallows can be heard flying past the mics. The bowed cymbals were recorded in my studio, then played back in the old church on speakers that were whirled around in the air. The chanting Hindu priest was recorded in the temple complex at Tanjore, Tamil Nadu. Propbably the holiest place I've ever been to.
19) Moving in from the rear speakers is the Indian Ocean. Recorded at Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.
20) The road I lived on in Leytonstone, was a main route out from London to Essex. Around midnight one night I was recording out of a roof window, when a high-speed police chase went past. Two police cars were accompanied by a helicopter, which passed and then came back and hovered overhead.
21) The rotating loop is another from 'To See'. It was made from two chords played on a sitar.
Copyright © 2004 Steve Marshall.