Aerial fragment, transversal birdsong
Follow-up to King of the Mountain – Kate Bush from Transversality - Robert O'Toole
The stream seems to have been taken from the more "abstract and conceptual" of the two discs, A Sea of Honey (not at all like the current single release). It is accompanied by an animation based on the CD cover, which features a golden sea scape with a waveform stretched across the middle looking almost like a row of mountainous islands reflected in the water.
The clip starts with a repetitive piano riff (think Olivier Messiaen), which is then overlayed by a short sampled birdsong riff (definitely think Olivier Messiaen). The animation makes it clear that the waveform is that of the birdsong. And then a line sweeps across the screen, very much alien and intrustive to the natural image, reminding us that it is a composed image – or perhaps the waveform is sweeping through the line. In any case, the coherence of the waveform is deflected outwards, throwing out fragments that morph into a flock of birds. And at the same time, the sound of the bird song is transposed into a more human, infant sound.
Intrigue: see the clip.
Messiaen was fascinated by birdsong; he considered birds to be the greatest musicians, and considered himself as much an ornithologist as a composer. He notated birdsongs worldwide, and incorporated birdsong transcriptions into a majority of his music. Wikipedia entry
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