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Cormac Faulkner
Topophilia

Album UK 2013 on [RHP] cdrs label
Electronic, Spoken Word, Folk, World and (Field Recording, Dark Ambient, Abstract)

Topophilia is my new solo album released by the CDR label RHP (rhpcdrs.wordpress.com). Each track on the album is a sonic exploration of a locale, space or specific site. The sounds you hear represent the place literally using field recordings and my response to it using instruments, voice and treatment of the sounds. None of this information is important to your enjoyment of the album but for those that are interested here is a bit of detail about the tracks. Coffin Walk Coffin Walk was recorded on a path in Warwickshire that was used to carry the dead from remote villages to Stretton-on-Dunsmore to be buried. Almost all the sounds here are made using contact mics on the wire fences that follow the route. There are also sounds of mud. The lyrics are from ‘I’m a Little Orphan Girl’ which is a playground song but also features in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. I don’t know which came first. Catherine’s Well pt.1 and 2 The two parts of this song may sound very different but were written at the same time and inspired by the same place. The title has a deliberate double meaning but the two tracks are based on field recordings I made at St. Catherine’s well in Coventry. I haven’t found much information about the well itself which now resides in the middle of a modern housing estate. The lyrics are based on a broadside about Catherine Foster who murdered her husband and was hanged in Bury St. Edmonds at the age of 18 in 1847. Soprani This piece isn’t site-specific, well not in the same way as the other tracks. This is a companion piece to a piece I created in 2010 called ‘The Residing Air’. The Residing Air used my grandfathers transistor radio as a single sound source and ‘Soprani’ uses his broken accordion in a similar way. Both pieces are inextricably linked with Cookstown, Co.Tyrone where my grandfather lived and worked. Tunnel Kunitoki Tunnel Kunitoki was recorded in Edgbaston canal tunnel in Birmingham. I brought a melodica and shruti box with me and responded to and played with the acoustics of the place. Laurel Inn Laurel Inn is based on field recordings made at Robin Hood’s Bay and in Whitby. The field recordings consist of multiple voices and I was interested in the textures created by layered human voices. Of his bones are coral made This track uses three field recordings made at San Terenzo, Italy around Halloween. credits released 09 May 2013 Written, recorded, arranged and produced by Cormac Faulkner Instruments used: field recordings, cassettes, voice, shruti box, guitar, accordion, melodica Laurel Inn contains the following principal field recordings: “pub conversations”, Robin Hood’s Bay, UK “voices and busker”, Whitby, UK Soprani contains recordings of a broken accordion using multiple microphones Of his bones ... contains the following principal field recordings: “stormy sea, waves, beach, fireworks and pier”, San Terenzo, Italy Coffin Walk contains the following principal field recordings: “rattling zip, mud, wire and steel fences”, nr. Stretton on Dunsmore, UK Tunnel Konitoki was recorded in Edgbaston canal tunnel, Birmingham, UK Catherine’s Well contains the following principal field recordings: “inside the well, gate, fence, scraping stone and metal”, Coventry, UK

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