Conversion

Conversion is, in the most literal sense of the word, an album of conversions. The two pieces that makes up the album were originally envisioned as pieces of musique concrète based on sound recordings made by the composer Jakob Kierkegaard – an artist for whom the foregrounding of the scientific and technical aspects of music is a crucial aesthetic device. It was only many years later that the pieces were reimagined for classical instruments in collaboration with Scenatet.

The first piece, ‘Labyrinthitis’, was commissioned by Medical Museion, a museum presenting the history of medical science, and the connection between the unnerving soundscape and medicine is evident: the name refers to an inner ear infection and the original piece consisted of oto-acoustic tones generated by the artist’s own ears. The second piece, ‘Church’, originally consisted of ambient recordings of an abandoned church inside the radioactive zone in Chernobyl.

In an interview with the music magazine Seismograf, speaking of the difference between the original compositions and the converted ones made with Scenatet, Kirkegaard said: “I think [the pieces] comes alive. Living dead. The Chernobyl piece is something beyond – a sound arose here that does not sound like anything created by humans. […] Somehow, those sounds are some sort of ghostly being that is just there. I hear that in the new work, too – but I can also hear the people playing it”.

Conversion, then, is a testament to what happens when the strange and alienating beyond is suddenly subjected to a human touch.

Vinyl release from TOUCH, March 2013.

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