Saturday, July 23, 2011

'The Bee Symphony' by Chris Watson & Marcus Richardson


'The Bee Symphony' by Chris Watson & Marcus Davidson is certainly one of the strangest albums of the year. 'The Bee Symphony' explores the vocal harmonies between humans and honey bees. If bees had human voices they would probably sound like this. It's a strange experiment and one that certainly proves somehow that humans still don't really understand animal soundworlds. A vocal choir tries to sing like bees on this album. At first they sound very lazy and dull. Wieeee.... wieeee.... Like the bees are too bored or drunk to keep up a tonal range. Maybe they really are drunk on nectar. Later on we hear some more exhilarating sounds. A nice alternation between male and female voices and some very ethereal harmonies. In the end the buzzing sound dies down when the bees retreat in their hives to go to sleep. Imitating bees is not new of course. Canadian artist Sarah Peebles did it before. 'The bees' by Animal Collective is one of the weirdest songs ever, but a 'bee symphony' is quite fascinating and new. It's been performed on the BCC and it's one of these albums that we keep on playing in our mp3. Buzz... Buzz... Very extraordinary!

http://www.touchmusic.org/thebeesymphony/

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