wildernish

A speculative score In response to a series of carte de visites curated by Dr. Orla Fitzpatrick, originating from studios in the town of Drogheda, late 19th cetury.

Arrangements for the harp:
Tara Baoth Mooney
Sonic aesthetics and production:
Diarmuid MacDiarmada
Composition and arrangements for harmonium, video editing and production:
Conor McMahon

SEE ALSO
The Book of Common Senses Vol.3

A dwelling for modular synths, harmonium and harmonica. Recorded live 23/09/2020.

Clean architectural lines by public design abruptly blurred and disrupted by this energetic gesture, the opportunistic 'interventionist' responsible determined to mark the entire surface of the shelter before any chance of 'getting caught'.

A public domain not at all designed for this kind of energy transformed to capture the light of a summer evening in a manner never intended by design or intervention at all. The light and it's patterns accidently presenting the perfect ephemeral elevation of an ordinary bus-stop, for just those few moments..

I had to go back to the house that evening for my camera, even though I knew I’d miss the bus. I spent about a half hour photographing the sunlight captured in the grooves of these markings and after another month or so, these perspex panels were replaced.

Throughout Christmas 2020 I subsequently processed those images through filters and animated them to a live, improvised recording I had made with my friend Diarmuid shortly before.

Compostion and improvised arrangment and performance: Diarmuid MacDiarmada
Conor McMahon
Modular synths, live audio, audio fx, mixing and production:
Diarmuid MacDiarmada
Harmonium, harmonica Live audio, video concept, fx and production:
Conor McMahon

SEE ALSO
The Book of Common Senses Vol.3

Serendipity takes us into the woods the last true afternoon of summer, to end a season of grievious loss and to begin the winter of rememberances.

Compostion and improvised arrangment and performance:
Tara Baoth Mooney
Audio Fx, mixing and production:
Diarmuid Mac Diarmada
Live audio, video fx and production:
Conor McMahon

SEE ALSO
The Book of Common Senses Vol.3

'Space Cadet To The Carnival Of Moon' is a single, unedited 10-minute video sequence layered over a piano improvisation recorded separately and at another time - but also all in the one take. Impulsively I added the piano as soundtrack at a later date only to find an uncanny, and almost perfect synchronicity between the two.

From there I found myself further inspired to consider a narrative for this piece and - while also reconciling impending personal loss at the time - I found myself contemplating the many life experiences my fellow travellers on that bus were likely carrying themselves in those same moments. All travelling together and our destination the only, singular thing uniting us on that journey.

This then triggered a reminder of a reflection I wrote years before, observing a child anticipating a forthcoming flight as we all prepared to board. Responding to that observation I found myself capturing thoughts of mortality and the shared experiences that automatically connect us all - simply by virtue of that fact that we are all alive at this same moment in time and all of us upon this same, singular planet.

And that's where I found the narrative, happy to discover too that it proved more than sufficient expressed as words alone. And although the words themselves took their own time to craft and synchronise to the pace of the music and video I was happy to persevere, ultimately to result in this short film of just over 10 minutes in length.

A long time in some regards, but just about the right amount of time necessary to pay tribute to what to me is perhaps the grandest, most exciting revelation I will likely ever have. The greatest consolation too, for whenever I might find myself struggling (as I often do) with the darker aspects of the nature of humanity.

SEE ALSO
Film Freeway

Scenes from a semi-suburban spaghetti western

By conventional standards a perfectly acceptable manifestation of our attempts to own the world around us. To blow our own horns as loud as we can while toeing the thin line of what is permissible, by public statute and by-law.

I took a day to retrace my commute in South East London / Surrey to comprehensively capture a sense of this, and what I see as the civilised tendency to unrelentingly urbanise, and especially with seemingly little regard to the contemporary environmental narrative.

I remembered after all this time, and suddenly - from out of nowhere. A cake which never got eaten. Will it be like this?

A 'last ever' thought - for when the time comes.

On bedside watch I photographed the cosmetic fantasies projected out at us from a wall-mounted TV. All the more skin-deep as they illuminated the fragile human reality in that hospital room.

Lie yourself down under nothing but sky. And for all those times you just don’t have the time - let yourself lie down. Let no-one stop you, not even you.

A walk along the canal, late on a dark winter evening. A swan - oblivious to the cold - dives to feed in the still waters, the white of its plumage devouring what little light there is in the night.

Less than a minute, almost gone.
I still thought about it after.
An actualised reflection upon every tiny existence.

Go lie in the grass
no-one can stop you.
Listen to the city close your eyes
rivers flow from your republic
wherever you lay yourself down.

Close your eyes
or keep them open if you want.
Go lie in the grass
no-one can move you along.

An epic for that caterpillar. And I wonder about the butterfly it may have become, fluttering about in the early autumn sun, still. Or maybe just eaten not long after by a bird or, crushed under foot where we found it.

From the time when the national anthem was broadcast last thing at night. I'd look at the waves and think, how anything human could ever claim to rule such a magnificent raging.

A woman all dressed in white, and - as waves of icy dust rise up all about us - a conversation about the cold sea. A dream of death but not a nightmare, because I knew I was'nt coming back.

SEE ALSO
Film Freeway

A fine bodhrán perfectly pitched, makes me feel as though I'm fused to the very rocks of this land. I play with knuckles alone in honour of the hands that built it, and the beast used for its skin.

SEE ALSO
Film Freeway

That evening I never really got round to switching on the lights. A friend suggests we sit under the full moon at the piano and leave our fingers just do the rest. Like nearly all improvisations I did’nt think much of it at first, but a listen back three years later and I hear resonances. Sound waves reverberating off strings, bouncing off walls, off the moon itself, and beyond to infinity, still reverberating today.

Originally released on the lp 'If I speak False' . From the cassette release - Selected Songs on thirtythree-45 (2018). Visuals by Conor McMahon. www.thirtythree-45.com

SEE ALSO
Film Freeway