RTCD21 - Fergus Kelly: Natural History

 

Natural History comprises ten tracks running to 49 minutes. The music uses a combination of found metals, plastics, glass, wood and field recordings. 

 

Fergus Kelly · Future Leakage

  

 

The work began by recording materials in a large resonant concrete interior. Metals in the form of saw blades, alarm bells, coiled springs, steel stands, metal conduit, wire mesh and Chinese cymbals were struck, swung and dragged in the space to capture the unique sound character of materials in motion. A variety of other metals were thrown and bounced about the space, and glass bottles were smashed. A small improvised horn with a flexible tube was played whilst whirling the tube. A long length of plastic cable was similarly whirled, as was a bull roarer. Large wooden laths were dropped and dragged in the space. 

  

Other recordings were made in large concrete walled, wooden floored interiors. This involved dragging steel frame plastic chairs and trestle tables to generate drones. Timpani mallets were used on floating inflated plastics. Metals were recorded in studio, struck and bowed. All recordings were edited and pitch-shifted to draw out latent harmonic content. 

 

 

 

I had recently made field recordings around various building sites in Dublin, which were edited and stitched into one track (Malign Alignment). I've always been drawn to the sound character of these sites with their sundry drones, clangs and thumps that are amplified and filtered by the highly reflective nature of the unfinished concrete interiors. To me, it's a form of random percussion on an industrial scale.

Delving deep in the field recording archive to add more sound colour and acoustic dimension to the compositions, percussion in the form of wing beats, fireworks, church bells, sheep bells, rain and struck metal fences were added. The time in development, from source recordings and edits to final compositions is approximately 6 – 8 months.

 

A necessary part of this process, near the end, where the editing tweaks and revisions get smaller and smaller and more and more critical, is to stand back from the work for a week or two and return to it with fresh ears and a clearer perspective. The work has to sit and settle for a good while before I become fully comfortable with it, and I get to a point where I feel it needs no further development.

The last element of the music is the sequencing of tracks. This is essential to the album's pacing and general developmental arc. How the tracks sit in relation to each other, and influence the listener's perception of them – a vital final edit.

It's often the case at this stage that I'll have no clue about titles and artwork, but it comes. It always does. I keep a notebook of words and phrases I encounter in various contexts – mostly reading – and these can be pressed into service when the time is right. The music is never illustrative, so the titles aren't either. But they have an inscrutable logic that fits the music and become part of its identity; a sealing-in or framing - the music is heard through that reference point and whatever it suggests to the listener. It becomes the work, the work becomes it.

 

 

Sources:

Future Leakage - Saw blades, whirled cable, whirled horn, telephone bells.

Ornamental Stagnation – Manhole cover, steel conduit, steel cage, whirled cable, brass discs, spinning tops, bowed telephone bells, wildlife recordings (Iceland), dragged table, steamroller, wire fence (contact mic rec), waste water treatment plant recording.

Malign Alignment – Glass bottles, bounced metals, dragged chair, whirled cable, building site recordings.

Lingering Indigo – Saw blades, telephone bells, large wooden lath, dragged chair, dragged spring, timpani mallets on inflated plastic, bounced metals.

District Encircled – Large steel plate, barrier stand bases, dragged chair, whirled horn, passing plane and St. Anne's church bell, Limehouse, London, starlings and magpies in back garden, large wall-mounted radiator (Collins Barracks, Dublin), bowed & struck metals.

Dreadnought – Dragged table, bowed metals, Chinese cymbals, barrier stand bases, wood-on-wood friction, fireworks, whirled cable, whirled horn.

Necrotic Narcotic – Glass bottles, large & small steel plates, dragged chair, pigeons.

Widescreen – Dragged table, steel gate, passing plane, large steel tube, Dortmund church bells, Manchester tram, Madrid sheep bells, bowed car springs, dragged chairs, rain on metal, Antibes jetty underside, steel bell (Collins Barracks, Dublin).

Blemished Emblem– Metals, large wall mounted radiator (Collins Barracks, Dublin), dragged chair, steel fence.

Elliptic – Struck metal fence, barrier stand bases, rubber mallets on steel fence, rain.

 

Album review by Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly):

 

"In one of my previous encounters with Fergus Kelly’s music, I may have written about getting one release a year (or was it because I got 2 in one year – I no longer remember), but now the time between the last one and this seemed longer. Maybe time moves too fast for me, and I can’t keep up. 

 

Kelly is a percussionist from Ireland, but not a traditional one. His work with multiple tracks (or, instead, studio technology) is the main difference from many of his peers. He started with recording metals (saw blades, alarm bells, coiled springs, steel stands, etc) in a large resonant concrete interior. 

 

His playing isn’t about rhythm but texture, resonances and other sounds one extracts from throwing, bouncing, bowing and scraping. He then made recordings in wooden floored interiors, using plastic chairs and trestle tables; more sounds were sourced from building sites, and a deep dive into the archive for older field recordings (fireworks, church bells, rain). The final step is creating a dialogue with this material. 

 

Along with my copy is a piece of additional information, which describes per track what Kelly put into each track, which makes a fascinating read (and I suggest putting this on Bandcamp!). The combination of droning sounds, using bow upon metal or gong, versus the more freely thrown about percussion, complete with the natural reverb of some of the spaces used to record this in, set against some very ‘dry’ tones, works very well. 

 

Kelly picks whatever bits that works very well. Sometimes, his music reminded me of Z’EV. While his previous release (see Vital Weekly 1390) had a distinctly more ‘song’/’melody’ based character, this new one is a return to his more abstract older works. This, too, is, of course, music, but not as traditional. Carefully placed rhythmic sections are added as landmarks for the listener. I have no preferences, and there are no weaker links. Ten tracks, 49 minutes of highly textured percussive bliss from a drummer with a different imagination."