Betacicadae – Mouna


Mouna

Betacicadae is probably not a name you will easily remember.
It concatenates Beta (“obsolete magnetic tape, a second version, something lowly“) with Cicada (“strange and humble insect that emanates beautiful sound”).
And: it is the artist alias of Kevin Scott Davis.

Mouna – available on CD, clear white vinyl, or as a digital download – is not easy to describe, since it contains many different styles.
Still it manages to present a coherent, “narrative” sound. I found myself returning to it and playing it over and over again – which is ususally a sign of something special going on…

Jamie Drouin – A Three Month Warm Up

Drouin

The ‘Warm Up’ this title refers to is the ‘cacophony of notes played by a symphony during warm up, where a single unified tone emerges out of the various intruments and voices” (from the liner notes).

In this ‘cacophony’ Jamie Drouin recognised the resemblance with the constant sound of traffic on a public square. He started recording these sounds at a public square in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The 124 field recordings from a period of three months were used to create this composition.

But this certainly is not ‘just another field recording’!