KATHY KENNEDY – HMMM REMIX COMPILATION (CD by Le Son 666)
Perhaps it’s safe to assume that all people hum, at least every now and then. Humming to themselves, to a tune or to meditate. Kathy Kennedy, of whom I never heard, does group hummings for ‘sonic experimentation and meditation, for play and for physical well-being’. Recordings of this humming were given to a whole bunch of people in order to crank out some form of remix, which is clever thinking, me thinks, because it brings her work to a new audience. Kennedy is, I believe, from Montreal, so some of the Montreal posse are here, such as Helene Prevost, i8u but also Francisco Lopez, Kim Cascone, Thanos Chrysakis, Austici, and lesser known names, such as Doug van Nort, Magali Babin, Jonas Olesen, Margaret Schedel. Some of them use the humming of voices as a starting point to create electronic deviations of it, other use the voices as voices, and layered them, change the pitch etc. But all of the twelve remixes (the first track is a sort of documentary piece about humming and people are being interviewed) seem to be interested in creating densely, atmospheric music in which you can feel good. To create perhaps a similar effect as humming, to enter a relaxing state. Quite a nice compilation, but not always a big surprise.
Address: http://www.le-son666.com
(FdW, Vital Weekly, #614)