murmurations

I've been wanting to write about Jan Bang for a while but despite having it in the pipeline for weeks there's still more I'd like to explore before drawing strong conclusions (plus it turns out university requires work too!). In particular there's been some academic work on musical ontology recently that I think might be relevant. But for now, some thoughts on Bang's ...and poppies from Kandahar . (Have a listen to bits of the album here ) What I find so exciting about this album is Bang's collective approach to sampling, field recording and found sounds. First off, there's a real physicality to the snatched recordings in each track, achieved largely through an emphasis on or 'sounding' of the production process of the recordings. So the layering of samples/recordings is made quite obvious to us, with different elements having quite different EQs, volumes and spatiality. The nature of their recording is also seemingly-deliberately man...