Ode to Oram Launch event

I am doing a Q and A as part of a special launch party for the Daphne Oram vinyl release, a new compilation celebrating 100 years of the life and sounds of Daphne Oram

The event is free entry to all, and we will be joined by the featured artists for a conversation about their contributions to the project.

We will also be listening to the vinyl in full and will have some of our team gracing the stage with dj sets also! looking forward to seeing you all there .

26 Nov @vittoriawharfstudio
10 Stour Road, London, United Kingdom E32NT
free entry tickets found here

https://dice.fm/event/av7lxv-ode-to-oram-release-party-26th-nov-vittoria-wharf-london-tickets
6.30pm-10:30pm

Mieko Shimizu and I co created a special track, called Folly Towwer Booms. We recorded plants using my midi sprout, which turns plant bio data into music, and in keeping with my radio air garden project used the the best pollution absorbers from Daphne Orams Tower Folly garden, as well as having access to unheard samples from her archive, which we mixed into the track, we used the melodies made by the plants to shape the track. Whilst making we found out Oram was intererested in plant communication, as she left underlined sections across her copy of Supernature which was amazing to find out.

It was interesting to hear Orams work in this way and used ome of the techniques she used, which was music stretching to create new instruments which is something I replicated with her voice. I’ve really enjoyed working with Mieko as we have different approaches to this so it was fun to combine ideas, we used the melodies generated by the plants and let that guide the work which unfolds and changes like the seasons. The track we made is called Folly Tower Blooms after a photo of her garden in the archive, the track features the melody made by 8 plants including, geraniums, coltsfoot, lilac, elderflower and others. We listened through to the sample pack alone and then together and choose what we found to be the most engaging samples of Oram, I wanted to focus on a gardening theme as Oram talks about building a green house in her kitchen and the more obvious sample of her talking about distant dream worlds, which I guessed others would use which has worked well as a motif. Listening to the samples given gave me a good understanding of the techniques Oram used often slowing down or speeding up records and recordings of instuments to make them sound like other things. I loved the idea of turning her practice on her and pitchsifting her voice into an instument which we did its sounds like a long horn. Mieko produced wonderful sounds and composition around the plant melodies letting them guide the structure, she also created an instument which she fed in Oram samples so they played specific notes and a bit of her voice , the over all track is constantly unfolding by each plant, which has given it a very organic feeling of growth.

The “Vari/ations – An Ode to Oram” LP out on November but you can preorder it, all compositions on it use samples from pioneering electronic artist Daphne Oram’s archive. The 10-track album includes pieces by: Cosey Fanni Tutti, Arushi Jain, Lola de la Mata, afromerm + abi asisa, Magz Hall + Mieko Shimizu, TAAHLIAH, Deena Abdelwahed, Marta Salogni, Félicia Atkinson, Nwando Ebizie, and xname.