Having just written about an Icelandic composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, it can easily be said that her music has some sort of sonic quality relating to natural landscapes. But for Kev Bales and Wolfgang Buttress' latest concerto, Be:One, the composers literally use the sounds of nature--in this case, bees--to fill out an entire album that is laden with the hypnotic droning of honey bees as they work.
That's right, the album at large here is one jokingly referring to the Beatle's One but substituting the low hum of a bee buzzing for musicians and instruments. There are a few small accents on various instruments heard in the tracks, but the foreground is pervaded, obviously, by bees.
The story begins (don't worry, this won't be a lesson in time) at a 2015 expo in which Nottingham-based artist, Mr. Buttress, built a hive-inspired pavilion as an art installation piece. In describing The Hive and the bees that inspired it, Buttress remarked, "Have you ever been to a hive? The first time you lift them out there's this incredible, visceral hum. I thought it might just be an irritating bzzzzzz sound, but it's so low it just kind of gets you."
Now let's fast-forward to the present, and that visceral hum Buttress spoke of has become the basis of his sound installation.
Buttress continued later in the interview:
"Too many human instruments sounded wrong. You had to get the balance right between bee and musician. At one point we tried some free-form Coltrane drums but it just took over. If you play too much the hypnotic trance is gone"
And once he found the symphonic temperament apropos of the piece's delicate timber, he arrived at a new album comprised entirely of bees and musicians. Yes, you've probably never heard anything like this before, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a chance.
While Buttress moves onto other endeavors, check out the One album on SoundCloud below.
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