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Inside Voices | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 James Wyness is a sound artist based in Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. Inside Voices represents his first release on his label Faraway, and is a limited edition release of 100 copies. He describes Inside Voices ‘4 tracks, each exploring the resonance and sounds of some of Edinburgh's public spaces.' As his description suggests, there are phonographic elements afoot in each track. Binaural microphones have been used, although he has explored the recorded material with (presumably) computer-based tools. The effect of which creates experiences that appear to begin at the physical plane, then change or degrade. This either reinforces a particular aspect of the atmosphere Wyness is attempting to describe, or shows it in another light. Disparate sound events also seem to have been combined, thus allowing Wyness to tell his own story of the places he has recorded. Wyness mentions on the sleeve notes that the recordings were assisted by several unusual items, including the ‘general decrepitude of the material world.' In some recordings he seeks to enhance this further, decomposing and bleeding sounds into each other. Glasshouse, with sounds recorded in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, compounds the phonographic elements by using effects. Sometimes a whisper of something recognisable arises, perhaps a voice, water or vehicles in the background. In Aquarium, again recorded in the Botanic Gardens, Wyness has refined sounds to the point that they become like chirps, bass notes and synthesised sounds. Rego features a progression of these techniques, where a beautiful yet ephemeral ringing leads into harsher, distorted sections. In track 4, Cartier-bresson, we hear a down-sampled version of low-frequency sounds, perhaps the generators or air-conditioning he mentions in his sleeve notes. Cartier-bresson reproduces the feeling of being an a gallery, with sounds of children who don't want to be there, abrupt sounds external to the gallery interrupting your meditation on a piece. The reference to Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of photojournalism, represents a possible source of influence for Wyness, who is taking up an analogous role of phonographer. James Wyness, using techniques that might be described as Musique Concrète, has put together a short collection of interesting slices of the atmospheres of Edinburgh's famous public places. Occasionally he blends his recorded material together to produce what might be described as musical passages, to further explain the facets of the environment he's trying to capture. With Inside Voices, he's contributing something unique and interesting to an increasingly fertile movement. Review by Alex Young
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