Keeping The Voice Box In Working Order: A Mixtape

Jon Doyle — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:39:00 +0000

You probably know by now that we like making mixtapes here at Wake the Deaf, and we’re constantly looking for new ideas and themes for them. This is going to be one of the more experimental (and probably less successful) attempts. The basic theme of the mix is speech. The songs had to contain some sort of spoken element and otherwise be instrumental. The idea was that this would create this weird, surreal collection of experimental (primarily electronic) music which would have no vocals other than the sound of people talking or making some sort of speech. I have been sitting on the idea for a long time and I’m still not convinced it works, but what the hell? Here goes. The title of the mix was taken from a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle:

“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.”

Tracklisting:

1. One – La Dispute

2. Bosnia – Prairies

3. Apex Of Excitement – Ethan M.

4. Giant Zero – Arrange

5. Most Of Us Are Maniacs Through Which The Universe Is Looking At Itself – Bewildered Hallelujah

6. Greywolf – USF

7. Dream. – of Architects

8. Her Favourite Song – Birkwin Jersey

9. Thin City – Matthew A. Wilkinson

10. Witch Dream – Dustin Wong

11. Waterpunches – PhaRo

12. I Felt Like I Understood It – Stupid Loser

13. I Saw A Body Floating Above Jerusalem – Cuddle Formation

14. Phthalo Blue – Lone

15. Black Hole – Man Meets Bear

16. Robot 30931 Feel Existential Despair – Neat Beats

17. Mrs Morris – Charles Spearin

18. Light At The End Of The Tunnel – Cloud Cult

19. Like Totally – Gold Panda

20. Have You Passed Through This Night? – Explosions In The Sky

As usual this mix is meant as a small taster, go out and support the bands by buying music and going to shows.

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Charles Spearin

Jon Doyle — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:08:00 +0000

I’ve had ’The Happiness Project’ by Charles Spearin for a good while but have never really given it the listen it deserves until recently. Spearin, a multi-instrumentalist member of bands such as Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think, uses sound clips of people talking to produce a strangely fascinating album exploring the ‘musicality’ of spoken word.

Each song uses different parts of interviews Spearing conducted with his neighbours in downtown Toronto. Different instruments and notes are used to compliment the mood or mimic the sound of the voices and a song is produced. A diverse range of people are sampled, from the noisy little girl shouting at her mother in “Ondine”, the deaf “Vanessa” to the sentimental tale from the immigrant “Mr Gowrie”.

It’s hard to explain exactly why the listen is so compelling, which is perhaps the reason I sat on the album so long before writing about it. The interviews are both interesting and affecting and the concept is weird and unique (at least to me). Give it a go and see what you think. Others seem to agree, The Happiness Project won the best contemporary jazz prize at the 2010 Juno awards (The Canadian version of the Grammys).

The album is available to buy from Arts & Crafts and is available on Spotify for you listening pleasure.

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Keeping The Voice Box In Working Order: A Mixtape

Charles Spearin