Having spent November and December in 2008 in Estonia, as artist in residence at MoKs (Center for Art and Social Practice) during the winter period, Felicity Mangan has created Lumetorm, literally meaning Snow Storm in Estonian. The compositions on this album derive from an assortment of sources ranging from field recordings (birds, frogs, wind, babies, street noises, windchimes…) to the more traditional instrumentation of the guitar, or to the more oblique such as paper bags. As composition it pertains more to the idea of sound design, whereby the elements of sound are manipulated for effect, and the performance nature of Mangan’s work tends to be an effects driven construction of collated and improvised sounds.
As a work it is described as “Fragile Compositions gently crafted” and to a great degree this is true as it is not bombastic or confronting as sound collage but spatial and discrete; purposefully environmental sound. The notion of a constructed picture of snow storm is not as apparent, certainly there is a sense of detachment and the knowledge of place and location of the recordings of sound is conveyed, as much by the information as by the sound, but as an entrance to the idea of a snow storm the album lacks descriptive power. While the demand for declarative precision may be misplaced, the ability to make clear knowledge and precise descriptions through sound is perhaps part a sense of what the term sound design pertains. The greatest sense of this within the album is on ‘Autumn Cusp’ which builds a complex array of sounds into a quiet sonic fury enveloped by a cloud of static noise.
‘Tea Tree’ with its strangeness of atmosphere and melodic guitar line is excellent as well, yet a too short or underdeveloped piece. The final track ‘Frogi’ combines a number of field recordings both as loops and collage suggesting clearly a nature tableau which besides it’s constructed nature differs little from the experience of an evening within a wetlands hinterland or similar frog habitat. That these final two pieces are detached from the idea of a Lumetorn suggests a seemingly incoherent design strategy by Mangen for this album which in retrospect diminishes an experience that within it’s boundaries was generally a quiet treat.
Innerversitysound.
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