Biosphere & Higher Intelligence Agency - Birmingham Frequencies (Headphone, 2000) (320)
A great review from here.
Polar Sequences and Birmingham Frequencies are two parts of a same project. Polar Sequences, released in 1996, was recorded two years earlier, during Tromso’s Polar Music Festival. Tromso, hometown of Biosphere’s Geir Jenssen, is situated 70 degrees north, above the Arctic Circle, in Norway.
In 1995, the organisers of the festival commissioned Geir Jenssen and Higher Intelligence Agency’s Bobby Bird, a series of three concerts, using environmental sounds recorded in the area. The concerts were given on top of a mountain, where the audience was brought to in turn by cable car.
The second part of this project was put together by Bird and Jenssen, using a similar approach, this time set in Bobby Bird’s native Birmingham. The chosen venue was on the twelfth floor of the Rotunda, situated in the heart of the city. The one off event also featured videos and digital images, as well as a café and one of the best views over Birmingham.
The music created for the two events is very similar in form, the two artists creating a slow moving, chilled soundtrack. But where Polar Sequences feels very natural, using sounds of snow and melting ice, the only human interaction being the cable car, Birmingham Frequencies is definitely more urban. Voices of children playing in a park or a pelican crossing alarm are amongst the sounds used as the basis for the creation.
These two records are complementary, and Jenssen and Bird both bring their own creativity and technology to a very interesting project. Absolutely unmissable.
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