max eastley

Installation Recordings (1973-2008)

Max Eastley is one of the most prolific and revered sound artists of the past half-century or so, experimenting with the sound-making potential of chance, nature and machines since the late 1960s. During that time, in addition to collaborating with artists like Brian Eno, Thomas Koner and the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, Eastley has been a prolific constructor of sound installations both in galleries and out amongst the real-world dynamics of the natural environment. Incredibly, this is Eastley's first solo album, a double-disc retrospective that updates and expands upon the 1975 release "New And Rediscovered Musical Instruments" (a split with frequent collaborator David Toop on Brian Eno's Obscure Records), collecting two hours and thirty-five tracks of indoor and outdoor recordings of Eastley's various sound sculptures, dating between 1973 and 2008. The accompanying 20-page booklet helps provide context for the sounds you're about to hear, presenting an array of photos that give some insight into precisely what a "Centriphone" might look like, and how an "Aerophone" operates. It's often hard to tell from sound alone what's going on, which pays testament to Eastley's ability to wring what are often very alien and unreal timbres from often very natural phenomena. His 'Aerophone' pieces really underline this, capturing incredible, detailed soundscapes made from air vibrations. On the first disc you'll hear a number of these pieces recorded out in the great outdoors of Wiltshire, and at times it all sounds overwhelmingly like a scene from The Birds - layer upon layer of chirruping, cooing and squawking all revealing the intense kinetic activity surging about us, simply in air currents. Recordings of Aeolian harps and flutes operate in a similar fashion, harnessing the indeterminate motions and energies of the environment to stirringly harmonious effect. Inevitably the more modern recordings prove to be more immersive, rendering the spatial dynamics of an installation in greater detail: the percussive 'Stone Circle' recordings (made at Folkstone's Metropole Gallery) from 2008 give a great sense of the sculpture's shape, proportion and position within the stereo field, and likewise the installation for the film 'Clocks Of The Midnight Hours' (recorded in 1990) portrays a chiming trickle of semi-tuned percussion sounds. The final two pieces on the second disc find Eastley in collaborative mode, teaming up with Steve Beresford and Dave Holmes for the engaging mechanical noise and droning tones of 'Whirled Music' (1990), while 'Swung Aeolian Flutes And Grass Blade' (1979) is more adventurous still - it's surely the only piece of music you'll hear any time soon that features a musician credited with playing a blade of grass as an instrument... A great, extensive collection that offers a revealing overview of Eastley's illustrious career. Very highly recommended.