Various: Cafe Concrete Plymouth City Project

This arrived just a few months ago with my subscription to The Wire. As usual, CD gets separated from the magazine, and I can't fall back on the additional information that may be there. The magazines are all in a pile just downstairs, and reasonably well sorted, so I probably could, but you know how it is…

I'm left with just the basics on the cover, which explain that the CD contains "eleven sound works by various artists in response to plymouth buildings, spaces and places." I'm guessing from how they sound that Plymouth College of Art has a sonic art course. Let's see. Well, it's easy to find a press release that says it does, though I can't find the course itself. Perhaps it's closed?

Many of the pieces are a little bit too predictable for sonic arts: go out on the street, record some "audio verité", then take it back to the College's lovely suite of Mac Pro workstations, and filter it through some Max/MSP plug-ins (or more fancy software for extra course credit). OK, I admit I'm being harsh and exaggerating to make a point here. Some of the pieces have accompanying video, and become more effective in that context.

Meanwhile, back on the CD, out of the stew of so-so material, Ben Solo's Tinside Lido emerges like the sun over… wherever the sun rises in Plymouth (the English Channel? Salcombe? I confess I've never been there, especially not at sunrise)… and offers actual music.

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Comments

[shaun lewin]

None of the tracks on the cd were made by art students at pcad. I don't think anyone except Neil would have used Max.I'd agree they make more sense in the context of the accompanying video and yes Ben's is the most melodic. Although I really like Mesa's and the track I made.

[David]

Thanks, Shaun, for correcting my mistakes, and apologies if my flippancy in making them caused offence.