Mainly for its challenging subject matter, but also as I like to gently nudge people about the environment, I’m giving a big shout out to Kate Carr and Iain Chamber’s Rubbish Music project. I mean let’s face it we’ve all heard far too many love songs and, quite possibly as a result, divorce rates are now around 50% worldwide.
If you aren’t aware fatbergs are dense masses of wet wipes, nappies, food waste and other items that aren’t supposed to be flushed down a toilet like fats and oils. They can grow to pretty epic sizes, and are increasingly blocking up the sewers of densely populated areas.
I’m classifying the recording as experimental ambient but don’t be scared, the water, as well as being slightly greasy and full of non biodegradable items, is pretty warm. Most, if not all of the noises on the recording appear to be found sounds, but there is a unifying, suitably shadowy subterranean ambiguity to them. I imagine sewer walls creaking, unpleasant cocktails gurgling through the rapidly narrowing channels, the faint hum and vibrational rumble of surface traffic echoing along century old tunnels, but as mentioned, possibly due to the food waste fermenting, there is a genuine warmth and hence listenability to this fatberg ode. Give it a spin, it’s oddly comforting.
Whilst on the subject of Kate Carr I should also mention her Midsummer, London solo LP of field recordings that are a sonic diary of her London wanderings. Artfully and remarkably she’s managed to turn the hustle and bustle of this fast paced city into another soothing, gently experimental ambient LP.
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