On two yet-to-be-confirmed days scheduled for 26–28 September, we will be in the studio with Hussein Chalayan, shooting a film of his collection 'Readings'. Joined in the studio by Antony Hegarty it will be SHOWstudio's task to create a special soundtrack for the collection and film. This is where you come in...
We have asked Hussein Chalayan to provide a written 'treatment' that gives the creative rational for Readings, which Nick Knight has responded to and created a more literal brief for SHOWstudio viewers to follow. Read them both and send us in your directions for Antony.
Hussein Chalayan proposal for Readings:
Throughout history, all cultures have idolised and worshipped various forces, either as a means to define identity or simply as a way to feel more complete. In modern life, it can be said that this sense of idolisation is directed towards celebrity culture, the masses identifying with certain figureheads as a means to perhaps define themselves and their differences. In this light, I propose to draw parallels between Greek/Pagan and other ancient cultural perceptions of icons or gods and modern icons (people as opposed to natural forces or gods), which in today's media are evolving much more democratically, with people becoming icons far more easily than in the past. My aim is to find the means to symbolise hw all icons are kept alive by the synergy between them and their audience.
Nick Knight's response and brief to SHOWstudio viewers:
Over two days we will film and record Antony Hegarty creating a series of sounds/music, which will later be mixed together to form the soundtrack for the film of Hussein Chalayan's collection Readings. The spirit of this should be experimental and pragmatic: the sounds might be as simple as clapping, speaking, tapping filled glasses of water or singing; they might involve instruments such as tambourines, guitars or pianos. We invite you to suggest whatever Hussein Chalayan's written concept inspires in you.
simple....Björk - Jóga
by lovesick101hot spring whoosh meets chirping birds!
by mamoru Kmcluhan meets eno meets the coke bottle filled with pebbles.
by mamoru Kreich meets hegarty meets gould!
by mamoru Ka song by bülent ersoy, i think. a dramatic and outstanding persona that is idolised by antony himself. her music has a sincere, bold and -somehow- domineering attitude. like some religious hymns that shake its believers' souls but sound horrifying and/or primitive to others.
by sntNo matter how brilliant the Icon, the shifting sands of public opinion and the constant ticking of time echoes in the background. Heard or unheard, change is inevitable. "Only the paranoid survive."
My suggestions are:
-the falling and/or shaking of sand.
-the tick-tock of clocks.
Look forward to the end product.
Good Luck.
by mmbbaahow about openng a bottle of coke or other fizzy drink,that pssssscht sound.
by harley
the sound of slow motion flash bulbs.
-ancient cultures immortalised their idols as statues we take photographs.
money being flused down the toilet
-modern day idolatry has more to do with publicity and corporations who build idols in a commercial sense rather than being chosen as symbols of intellect, accomplishment or spirituality.
a heavy bell tone
-a call to worship
Tina Turner - 'Simply the Best'
- a populist anthem for media heroes/ icons
"I call you when I need you, my heart's on fire
You come to me, come to me wild and wild
When you come to me
Give me everything I need
Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams
Speak a language of love like you know what it means
And it can't be wrong
Take my heart and make it strong baby
You're simply the best, better than all the rest
Better than anyone, anyone I've ever met
I'm stuck on your heart, and hang on every word you say
Tear us apart, baby I would rather be dead"
Vocalist sings into the resonating chamber of an upright or grand piano. With the sustain pedal held, the frequencies sung hold in the space. Knocking, tapping, sliding fingernails accross the outer body of the piano add percussive elements. Try releasing the sustain and holding keys without striking a string, then the resonating sound can be focused to a note or chord. At this point plucking or gliding a hand accross the strings will make a zither-like sound, but bellowing vocals into the chamber can remain to enhance the piece. Play the piano. Use it. Feel it.
by EIsford
Yes! Medium is the message or rather Media is the message.
I propose there be a counterpoint of Anthony's voice in a canonesque treatment. By this i am referring to Guillaume de Machaud's "La fin est mon commencent". A witty rendition of either text (pure speech) and horizontally/melodically inclined music. In this manner, we touch upon the archaic spirit (genus loci) of "time". Space being expressed by the dynamic between the voices/words/breaths etc...
I don't want to suggest other than what can be a concept that is somewhat pure in it's language. Dirtying it up comes in the realization i guess.
Ideas for the text :
1- the text can be 4 whatever number of individual characters being interviewed about the phenomena of isolation. Isolated beings that create "utopic thithers". Idolisation or idolatry is often a form of intense "divertissement". Hero worship could be more a propos in regards to modern media idols. the voices being interviewed are interpreted (spoken or sung or both) by Anthony. Anthony can use a LEXICON JamMan pedal to prerecord himself as he prepares to enter with the new voice. This will probably produce beautiful results. The entry of each of the voices is timed in accordance to the preceding voice. It infuses new life into the discourse. the words could relate to the natural elements. Maybe intimating animism. I see an individual who living in the great white north has come to see every element (snow, tundra, wind, stones, lichen etc...) as pieces of the grand design that he/she is intimately involved in. I guess there, one can discover a deeper meaning of absence/presence. As for modern figureheads, i can't relate to humans as icons. I think of an atom, now there is an icon!
hook rubberbands on your fingers at different tensions and play like a stringed instrument
by Lieblow up a balloon and slowley let the air out until you get the high pitch screech and then the farty bit at the end! Or blow up lots of ballons to different sizes and pop them at various intervals whilst letting the air out slowly from another.
by LieAntony playing the comb- placing a piece of tissue over a plastic comb and blowing through, like a mouth organ.
Or, getting back to nature using a bird calling whistle.
by katiejput two grass reeds between the sides of your thumbs press together and blow! sorry it may be called reed blowing?
by LieOr what about just give him a full Foley kit and see what he can do with it? It's bound to have all the stuff you need for Deity-worthy thundercracks, lightning bolts and the like.
by SandrineWhat about a Jew's harp? I hear they're quite dangerous to play, mind, and can slice the tongue of a less experienced player. Great sound, though!
by Kirsty Alsopp FanclubI'd like to hear Antony play non-stop chromatic scales and arpegios on the piano, just like after-school practice.
by SandrineAntony should just set his vocals wild over the Mixolydian scale. It would totally suit his voice.
by Vaughn Hardcastlea few lovely instruments:
theremin
a saw
pots and pans
horn
harmonica
accordion
slide guitar
flute
lute
harpsichord
spoons
sheep's bones
vibraphone
washboard
hammond organ
mellotron
and last but not least, a pipe organ
cheers x
by anna_icelandi have always admired the sigur ros esq quality of using the voice as an instrument in itself, no words just playing the vocal chords as if the chords of a harp
by ClassyGlassyThe sound of Antony dipping lit matches into water.
by fatheadThe treatment of this should maybe try the sounds of synthetic materials. Artists these days are always trying to go quiet organic and naturel. Antony should fly into the opposite direction working with plastics, styrofoams, and metals etc... Squeezing out as much sound on them as possible trying to even create rythmic beats with the use of a dictaphone, capturing sound and replaying them as new ones are created.
by AnoisewasleakingAntony should play the conch. The mythological Greek God, Triton used a 'twisted conch shell to calm or raise the waves'.
by fatheadHegarty should be filmed creating sounds on what is commonly known as instruments-non-instruments, such as the sound of rattleing cages, books falling, light switches clicking on and off, singing into fans, the spokes of bike wheels spining, something slightly reminiscint of matmos but not in an obvious way matching his unique voice to the most common of things
by CaringCreeperSnip, snip, snip of scissors cutting hair, Jazz snare drum alternates like a lounge act in Vegas, cat meows, then cellophane is unwrapped, again and again...with words sang in the sounds of the double pipe and trumpet, silence (reading) the beating of a heart fast then slow. The singing of a woman alternates with a voice of a man but they ultimately mere into one voice which sinks lower and lower while psychedelic rock and roll fades up and the sounds of temples crash-Atlantis falls, buildings falls, until a temple bell sounds, water drips, dragonfly buzzes and the singer sings the word one, one, one, the beauty of one.
by stepwolfgang1
I am not sure that copyright would allow,but personally I would love to hear you sing The Golden Apples Of The Sun by Terry Callier.
Beautiful.
talking through a megaphone,tuninng a radio,whispering,tap dancing,clapping,clicking his fingers and sing Happy Birthday To You.
by --1cal1--prehaps he could say a pun;" my niece is cold because my knees is cold."Thank you.
by friend
It has been a long time since i last wrote,but this is what I would like Antony to do; place a toy vibrating fish on the strings of a piano.
Thank you
Mix looped tracks of the Nuremberg Rally crowds
with Tesco checkout-till 'beeps' and Antony reading
the current FTSE figures.
Native American drum beating with Arab woman clicking their tongues then several men blow the horn like before a Mediaeval Joust. Fade up dripping water next the readings with the sounds of pages turnings then ripping at a pause a huge sigh the scatching, biting, laughing, children playing, rainforest at night, the ǃKung people chanting then guitars, drum, rock and roll with more readings, the end of the world with the explosion of the A-bomb,(Silence) ending with the cry of woman and baby in birth. Hussein shouts period. Silence should be used like the silence periods that the great movie editors produce for dramatic effect.
by stepwolfgang1I would like Antony to tell jokes. Thank you . Mariaxxx
by maria ni would like to hear Antony tell jokes. Thank you.Mariaxxx
by maria nThe flutter of camera shutters are the lifeblood of an icon today.
The whirr of film and the click of mobile phones. The flash and explosion of bulbs, a cacophony, a symphony.
The click of expensive heels, the swish of silk and creak of leather.
Phones ring incessantly, amidst the screaming of all those ardent fans, and the sighing of heartfelt promises.
Air-kissing mwah mwah. Lift music. Scratch a pen across a page and sell it for a million. You're not just you, you're you times a thousand now. Giant.
You've got mail. You used to wish for attention and noise but now your world will never be quiet again. Happy?
by finnwitchDesert Roses;
It's all in there. In the morning rising sun starts to heat already so dry soil. Little by little beams cause the earth to open up and unleashing it's stories that human has tried bury there since we were "apes". Good & bad ones. The roses of the dessert starts to blossom. Passers by has no other option than seek for the shade and sit down & listen.
Some soundbites from the process:
- Anthony doing arabic chanting.
- Distant wind sounds made by mouth.
- The earth opens up=crushing paper.
- Rose blossoming = Piano played first only with low notes, and then going up, and in the end only with high ones.
can Antony play thoses water filled wine glasses whilst humming?
by laAntony, covered in blood, eagle feathers and animal skins, performs "Material Girl" as a folk ritual using voice and a wooden xylophone.
by Vikram KansaraReadings:
Lights are low...one spotlight on a flowing bubble....bubbles.
The song: TU ME ACOSTUMBRASTE by: CHAVELA VARGAS tunes in.
we have idolized the unattainable for years...for centuries. We have been used to this thought of impersanation and consumption since the sun has risen of the mayan ruins. Feathers, Gods, Pigment, tanning lotion, jewels, expensive vodka....redbull. We have identified ourselves with people that have risen out of the flames of our own demise. WE HAVE CREATED THESE ICONS. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLORIFICATION OF AN IDEAL. From People like CHE to personas like MICHAEL JACKSON....we have tried to make sense of it all...with only our wallets and minds to be taken advantage of.
In the days of Alexander the great...celebrities were made out of conquering...out of love...out of feeling for life...out of those things that changed the way the world looked at humanity.....contrasted to our sad times that we live now. Making "the celebrity" a status...that we all crawl and beg to be part of......what are you on.....how big your dick is....how many people have you fucked...how hard can you party.....porno...look at the lights....sweat....finger a chick.....website paris hilton videos...political mockery to the masses....over population...the earth melting....our sad lives to be recorded in US weekly.
We as humans of 2007...have perceptions of grandeur..of making it...of trying to get to the big apple and fucking MRS. WINTOURS... or even better.....doing some blow in a club with the greats...with the great partiers of our generation.
I ask myslef now....as a celebrity...we will forget...we will try and stay in touch...but it won't happen....we will never create greats like HUNTER S THOMPSON AGAIN...WE ARE DEAD INSIDE OUR BRAINS...WE DONT CARE AS PEOPLE...WE HATE OUR NEIGHBOURS...DONT GET TOO CLOSE...
The song: GOODBYE BABY AND AMEN by: THE CONSTANTINES comes on.
LONG shots of SOUTHERN SUDAN COME.....
human kindness....it's all down river.....we idolize the fakes...raise your heads...and let US BECOME THE CELEBRITIES OF OUR LIVES...LET US BECOME THE SOUND OF LIGHT WHEN IT CREEPS OVER THE ANDES...ILLUMINATING THE CITIES THAT CREATED OUR CULTURES.
THEY WILL ONLY STAND AND EXIST WITH US...PARIS HILTON IS NO ONE WITHOUT US......but Ceaser will stand forever....
End with a shot of the PUMA ON THE TOP OF A SNOWY MOUNTIAN....we are all snow cats.
The Big Brother SFX LIVE Track.
Scissors cutting through material.
Paper being Torn.
The sound of Religious Icon Worship, Synagogues, Temples, Churches, Mosques etc. . .
by ryszard andrzejewski
There is not such a thing like "icon and
audience" anylonger! It seems to be, but it´s not. It s just marketing! LET US PRETEND TO BE HEROES! The truth is, everybody and -thing becomes the same! (Convergenzeffect).
Mellody becomes rythm and rythm becomes
mellody. Forground becomes background and vice versa. That is way the music shoud
be sequancial and pattern based, with a humanized factor!
That is, what came up into my mind!
Thx, peter
The icons of the modern life in sound can be "the sound of technology".
axe vs chain saw
wood fire vs gas fire
wind vs wind machine/hair dryer
carriage vs plane
stream vs bottled water
any instruments unplugged vs any sound made electrically
etc...
The modern music uses so many different sound from various sources to make a beautiful track, like the following;
Fairly Dance of Twinkle and Shadow by Susumu Yokota
Hanged by Tunng
A Wongga Dance Song by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Long Wave by Vector Lover
I’ by Subtle
I've Got Viking In Me, Clouding by Fourtet
Logon Rock Witch by Alarm Will Sound
London Darkblue Winter, Jojo by Efterklang
Anywhere On This Road by Lhasa De Sela
The mixture of above would be nice.
by kisaragiFYI, ancient Egypt, Greek, Jew and Arab music have at least one instrument in common - the cymbals.
by mmbbaa
Benoit...I love your analysis... great...great reading....and food for thought.... !
Having said that.... I believe..that the new icons are mostly made of sand..., more easily blown away by the 'wind' and... into oblivion.. ... in comparison with the ones you mentioned in your tretament....but that's just my perception...
Am I alone in feeling reservations to come up with New Age sound suggestions for a musician like Cat Power? It feels like asking Bob Dylan to try the coconuts instead of a guitar. Regardless of my doubts on coconuts and crystal glasses, here's a variation on my previous treatment:
Chalayan's aim to "symbolise the synergy between icons and their audience" seems far too optimistic and naive in my view. It discounts a side of the story that remains untold in his proposal. The appropriation of the icon by the audience becomes increasingly more violent. As opposed to constructive in Chalayan's view. Although the relation between audience and icon is nonexistent, the illusion of one is maintained by mass media, tabloids and paparazzi. Celebrities, our modern-day icons, are forced to uphold their constructed or manufactured identities. Idolatry leads to infringement; boundaries between public and private sphere become blurred or seize to exist. The consequences of this evolution are often disastrous: synergy gone wrong. (John Lennon gets shot by a crazed fan, Elliot Smith dies from two self-inflicted stab wounds to his chest, ...) So what happens when icons aren't being kept alive by this presumed synergy with the audience, but actually find death through it?
My proposition remains the same: to somehow make use of the legacy of these icons (Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Elliot Smith, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, ...).
Not necessarily a traditional cover, but perhaps recycle their "sounds". For example a bassline from a Joy Division song together with a chorus from Elliot Smith.
by benoit...it just occurred to me when reading Kataka's Treatment :
.....witnessing that ' ordinary ' people are becoming icons easier than baking a cake, where you have to do every thing absolutely right to make a real, desirable and tasteful cake.....my point being.... aren't these ' new cakes '...so to speak....just full of gist ?.......what I'm getting at is that...that is the very reason why I seem to be extremely sceptical about...the new brand of gods (icons)......they aren't lasting ....but just an illusion, perhaps because there aren't as many true icons to inspire and to draw energy from in comparison to what went before....perhaps that aspect should be considered... I believe that the new icons are mostly about ....' the 15 minutes of fame '...just how one of our very true and solid icons predicted.....
by Galileo's Universe" with people becoming icons far more easily than in the past "
I think we love today's icons because they're human, extraordinaire and ordinary, rising and falling and rising...
I suggest that words describing the ordinary may be whispered into clothing, things such as : "scratching my back", "swallowing" etc.
have fun! and looking fwd to see the result.
I once saw a really brilliant documentary about sources of musical inspiration around the world, and the bit that's stuck in my memory is of a bunch of people playing in a river and just using what they had to hand to create sounds - but without putting their hands together. Instead, they slapped the surface of the water, different parts of their bodies too (dry and wet flesh sounds different) but it's mainly the sounds made with water that impressed me. Other than that impossible to describe... and messy to reproduce! Also, not sure it's relevant to the brief, but hey.
by f:luxI think what you are looking for is a "new note"! Aren't we all. The difference is that people like Hussein and Nick seem to find ways to create these new notes and that is how they have such a strong audience for their work. Cat Power is new to me. I will listen with interest.
My idea for Cat Power is this. Sounds that vibrate and hold their sound to resonate with the audience.
-a gong
-a bell
-a chime
-a xylophone
-a crystal glass (rings clearer than glass) with a wet finger circling on the rim or a clinking with crystal will ring.
-blowing into a bottle
After the vibrating whole note ... the echo
-multiple answers, or the sound replying on mass of a gong, or bell, chime, xylophone, crystal glass, bottle.
The single "new note" is the icon and the echo is the audience responding approval.
Thanks.
by mmbbaaI'd like Cat Power to make the sound of fire.
by Kirsty Alsopp FanclubThe lyrics for 'The Greatest' seem to suit the proposal...the opening instrumentals of the song also seem in keeping with some of Hussein's ideas. Maybe a slightly remixed version of the tune....
Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or water fall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
The stars at night turned deep to dust.
This is such a brilliant project. I can't wait to here the results...
by Snoozan
Wow,what a fantastic project!!!!
Please can Cat Power play with some wind chimes.
Thank you.x
maria
Perhaps, in keeping with the synergy bit, the piece might have an understated common beat or reverberation (like humming or percussion or whisepring) underneath whatever else goes on, symbolizing the almost eternal, recurring presence of these icons in our memories and lives.
by LJ
For the introduction, i want it to go back to the basics of constructing clothes.
Juxtaposing the ancient and the modern.
The sound of the blades of fabric shears slowly opening. (it also sounds like a light sabre from star wars, which describes the laser that chalayan was inspired by)
with muslin tearing from the straight grain.
The sound of a sewing machine in contrast with the sound of falling timbles and pins. Sounds like fallen stars.
And for me, idolising can reach to a form of insanity.
And a ball that bounces off from wall to wall composes the sounds(music) that we hear from our brain. Better yet, tossing plates and glasses off the walls that can also represent the screams from idolisation. This can be partnered with regurgitation of nothing-ness.
Silence, that represents chaos. Which meant primal emptiness in greek mythology. Signifying how definitions can so easily be changed. And because of the unpredictability, the idea is kept open and alive to different viewers. Sounds of the chaos of glass bouncing off walls might still be echoing in viewers head, and might even create its own life.
by sunnylimDiaphanous sheets of earth colored silk, cotton, burlap, flutter and scatter and litter the studio forming a pyramid and from whithin the structure Cat slowly aries like a Pheonix from the flames. The music is a mix of cicadas mixed with romantic recorder, oud and then cellist allow Cat to begin her guitar thrumming (slow and light like the eyes of Paul Bowles from his bed and then strong like the madness of Alfred Chester smoking kif. As cat plays her recorded voice chants "Blood that can morph. Morph-blood. (she said this in an interview) in the background. As she emerges plates of geometric shapes (the ancient forms-square, cone, stonehenge etc.,) spray across the entire scene and the sounds of bodcat then a pail falls into a well full of water, a grandmother sings the southern paw-paw patch song, then mixed with a quote from Truffaut-"Quand l'humeur peut être faite pour alterner avec la mélancolie, on a un succès, mais quand les mêmes choses sont drôles et melancholic en même temps, il est simplement merveilleux."
by stepwolfgang1Cat Power plays covers of songs of musicians (icons) who have succumbed to fame and commited suicide. Some suggestions: Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, ...
The covers are played low-key, stripped down, raw.
by benoit
....thunders as the force of nature....mixing it with the sounds of broken crystal.....silence building up to
whispering....flute....evoking the ritual that is going to commence...the ethereal dance between the icon and his audience....symbolising the energy the audience draws from their icon...energy of dreams....desires.....the sound of a waterfall...to symbolise the elixir of life...and to the audience the elixir and the source of.......inspiration....it must have an ethereal atmosphere.. all in all it should reflect the ever ongoing ritual between both.....
The aesthetics of the atmosphere to be created should resonate the aura of gods that sorrounds the icons.....
I'm absolutely sure Hussein Chalayan , Nick Knight nd Cat Powers will be doing a great job....what a wonderful combination !...The great inquisitive mind of Chalayan with his masterful ways of executiing his art mixed with Nick Night's great sense of beauty and finesse, and the incredible musically talented Cat Powers makes me incredible happy to react to their project.......
Wishing you all......... all the Best !......
Throughout history people on mass -the audience, find their heroes -the icons, when they find someone who appears to do the exceedingly extraordinary. These icon people are like the audience, but with a difference. They dare to dream, think, plan, prepare and execute. They put a tremendous amount of energy into the seemingly simple, creative or obvious making it appear that the stars have all aliened and cleared the way before them. As long as the icon continues to produce and dazzle the audience, they will allow the icon to remain in that role. The party continues and everyone, audience and icon have a good time.
Often brilliance is a result of a synergy of very creative people making it happen. When it does happen, the world is taken by storm.
My sound track for Hussein Chalyan would be just that - A Storm.
Starting with the sounds of a beautiful day, birds, crickets, footsteps and even laughter that becomes muffled by wind, rain and then thunder as the crescendo. The storm recedes and laughter returns ending with the clinking of glasses and a group of voices crying, "Cheers".
by mmbbaa
At first, all you need is drums. As a purification, as a rhythmical ritual that will get you back in time, through centuries and civilizations, till you sense you have met the archetypes of music. Then you will introduce flutes and lyres.
USE the music to READ faces and READ bodies to better USE the music.
[I ADORE HUSSEIN CHALAYAN] cassourel
To create a stirring backdrop to the soundtrack I propose both the continuous sound of a prayer bowl (google it) and a 'singing' crystal glass (wet finger around its rim). It's a tidy juxtaposition between the spiritual and modern!
by fatheadmario merola,dalida,zorba the greek,julee cruise,the blasters
by italianart