| Info |  |
The Big Picture by Mike Willox | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
 The Big Picture, released on Sargasso, is Mike Willox's debut album. According to the label's description, the album began life during Willox's tour in Japan, where he collected recordings of the sounds and atmospheres of Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka. The cover features Japanese signs, although these are reversed—perhaps partially representing the process Willox used to manipulate sounds. Once back in England, he went on to edit and craft these sounds in his Loungescape Studios, in London, to produce some of the material on The Big Picture. Shinkansen, the first track, is the name of the Japanese bullet train. Willox builds up a sonic collage from the sounds of the crowds and announcements. This really creates the impression that this track is an introduction to the rest of the album, with the obvious metaphor of the station being the departure point. A Rare Glimpse contains a wide array of samples from Henry's Pencil (in sound-check at London's 100 club), to a Routemaster bus conductor. The samples are processed more subtly than Shinkansen, but if you listen carefully to the recordings of the drums and other instruments, you can hear little edits Willox has added. The Little Boat blends samples taken from crackles from old vinyl, Willox on piano and filtered floor announcements and lift music from a Tokyo department store. The transition between tracks is lost here, giving the impression that The Big Picture is actually a seamless piece, rather than a collection of pieces. And The Little Boat takes us to another island of sound in our journey, in which recorded sounds in the background degrade and give way to a welcome piano section. Willox edits and reverses the piano, making way for Ninety Seven. Ninety Seven, featuring Tony Kofi on saxophone, Willox on piano, and more bullet train samples, continues the cultural discourse. The reversed piano theme from The Little Boat continues, easing the transition, making us feel as if we're standing on a shore between points. The next track, Rough Memory, begins abruptly, with samples from a dance class. Willox creates another collage, this time from vocal samples and contributed drums and percussion. Suddenly, Noise begins, as experiments on a Moog appear in the sonic vista. In Wave, Willox mixes Japanese television and European radio, and this made me question The Big Picture—is Willox attempting to show the relationship between cultures through seemingly unimportant details, hence “The Big Picture”? Theories aside, Baubau bursts into existence with samples from a Japanese temple band rehearsing for a wedding. The next track, Buzz, was apparently selected in 2000 by the BBC's Mixing It programme as part of their nation-wide new composers search. Buzz is a moment of epiphany in The Big Picture, where all of the other ideas and themes appear to coalesce. Phone Box has some excellent notes in the sleeve: “scramble bikes. A phone box. Sherman filtered Novation. 2 bits of metal. Derek Pascoe on saxophone. Steve Droy on piano tuning.” Bits of metal aside, however, the way the samples have been edited brings them together in a compelling and natural way. And, of course, the story continues as the tuned piano appears to give rise to Concert, the next track. The seagulls in Sea Shanty leads us back to the shore, so I suppose it must be time to get the bullet train home again. The Big Picture is quite complex and diverse, but what makes it memorable is that Willox is clearly exerting a narrative voice through his choice of source material. Whether this be field recordings, television, radio or instruments, it feels as if there's a reason for the sounds to be there. A sense of freedom reigns. Review by Alex Young
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
