The trickling, bubbling, and gurgling movements of water bodies have been a recurring motif for as long as ambient music and field recordings have existed. Yet, UK-based Portuguese artist Matilde Meireles has a gift for reshaping the known into the unexpected. Based on DRIFT, a site-specific floating pavilion created as part of the Belfast 2024 cultural programme, Four Tales showcases Meireles’s brilliant sense of sonic architecture. Field recordings ripple gently over abstract electronics, like a shallow stream over rocks. The patter of rain and the droning nocturnal calls of nearby wildlife emerge into urban traffic. The flow sounds so pristine, so untamed that it suggests an absence of anthropogenic influence, highlighting the disquieting nature of the live performance and improvisation on percussion (Michael Speers, Conor McAuley) and tromba marina (Paul Stapleton) that haunt the album’s closing section.
via Research Music