Shipwreck Radio - July 8

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 8 - LOFOTEN DEADHEAD

The opening track off the Lofoten Deadhead companion album, it begins with the opening chimes and welcomes slowed down—sounding as though they were descending slowly into a bottomless abyss. Then the track begins in earnest, with what sounds like a mournful low brass melody, a gentle ringing metallic rhythm above it. At the two and a half mark, a slowed and stretched gull caw joins this melancholy pondering, with less processed gull calls following it a minute later. The bird calls increase in frequency and variety as the mournful brass and chiming metal continue, giving the impression of a somber and clouded afternoon on the seashore. 

After the six minute mark, we get a brief bit of waves and then the low brass and chiming fade out, giving way to bird calls and more sounds of waves, a hint of footsteps on a rock shore. The melancholy is gone; giving way to a slightly sinister set of stretched electronic tones below the bird calls by the eight minute mark and then after the nine and half minute mark strange echoing and highly processed bird calls join the more naturalistic ones, giving one the impression of going to an uncanny shore as the processed bird calls drown out the unprocessed ones. The calls are largely alien in sound after the eleven minute mark—strange high chirps and stretched out warbling caws, whistlings and noises that echo as though you’ve left the shore for a strange dark cave; a long way from the gloomy shore the song began at. In the final moments of the song the bird calls are entirely electronic sounding, more like the chirping of robots than any organic life. 

While I must admit a preference for the slow and mournful beginning of the song, the slow transition of the bird calls from natural to artificial sounding provides an excellent example of how the natural sounds gathered by Nurse With Wound in Lofoten can be transformed; the calls echoing at the end reverberate not just in the soundscape but also with the weight of their original nature.