Inanimate Life by Mark Peter Wright

I like making field recordings, recording and archiving a moment in time, to travel back to while listening to it on some later day. The field recordings Mark Peter Wright made for his album Inanimate Life are not the same though. They take the listener a little closer to their sources. 

Mark Peter Wright made his field recordings along the North East coast of England, inspired by the voice of the coastal winds. Other than what you might expect from field recordings, it is never really clear what I am listening to. While listening to Inanimate Life on my headphones the sounds rumble through my head, evoking images in my mind of what might be the source of those haunting soundscapes.

For every listener the experience will be different, as these images are triggered inside your own frame of reference. If I close my eyes I see fields of heather, trees blowing in the wind, and it feels like I am inside of them, like for a moment I am that branch, bouncing in the wind. The sounds I hear seem strange but organic.

The album comes in a nicely designed hand-numbered package (mine was 26 out of 150), including a business-card-size mini-CD containing a short piece of commentary by the artist. The names of the tracks are intentionally not numbered, inviting the listener to make his own assumptions. 

Inanimate Life “features some of natures most complex and vibrant audial worlds; including the creaking roots of wind blasted heather, the playful gusts that animate giant oak trees and the wailing drones that resonate along wired fencing.”

Inanimate Life can be ordered in the 3Leaves webshop.