Reeder, Philip and Lamb, Johny (2015) Project Report: 'still every year they went'. In: Innovation In Music 2015, 8 June 2015, Anglia Ruskin University. (Unpublished)

Lamb, Johny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7654-1004 and Reeder, Philip (2015) Reeder, Philip and Lamb, Johny (2015) Project Report: 'still every year they went'. In: Innovation In Music 2015, 8 June 2015, Anglia Ruskin University. (Unpublished). In: Innovation In Music 2015, 8 June 2015, Anglia Ruskin University. (Unpublished)

Abstract / Summary

‘still every year they went’ involves the rewriting of songs from the UK fisheries and the recording of these arrangements at sea in a working fishing boat (the boat and its own sounds being of particular importance during this process). Subsequent captured performances and field recordings will then be re-composed for surround sound, outputting both a fixed album of music (due for release on Armellodie Records), but also developing into a live performance event in surround touring in August of this year, starting at the Tate St Ives.

The proposed paper speaks explicitly to the conference themes of innovative music creation and music production. We will explicate the motives and methods of this current practice based research project which engages in a collision of fidelities, technology and compositional practices belonging to; on the one hand traditional folksong, and on the other to sound-based music. Both researchers have a strong background in the application of field recording within composition and music that is located geographically.

This paper will discuss both the technical and compositional innovations of the project with some specific focus on the ‘ontological catastrophe’ of recording (drawing from Lamb’s research into recording as a form of taxidermy) and the inevitable failure of ‘immersive’ audio, particularly in the challenging environment of the ocean and the migrations of maritime working song from sea to land to sea, and back to land again, particularly given the contemporary vessel’s lack of need to working songs. As such, we make an investigation of the status and performance/production of folksong through technological innovation within the contexts of site and composition for maritime song.

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