EVERYTHING from the trance-inducing sounds created by neolithic burial sites to 3-D soundscapes created by human brainwaves are to feature in a ground-breaking project making its British debut at Liverpool’s FACT Centre, in Wood Street.
The Future of Sound 2007 has been put together by Martyn Ware, a founder member of the electro-pop giants Human League and Heaven 17.
It will feature seven performances at the cutting edge of audio visual experimentation, promises Ware, who is now one of the world’s leading figures in the production of electronic music.
“Liverpool as a city has always been a loyal supporter of our more experimental work with Human League and Heaven 17 – so we are especially happy to be presenting the first date of our world-first tour in the city to what we know will be a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic audience,” said the 50-year-old Sheffield-born musician, who formed the Human League together with Phil Oakey and Ian Craig during the summer of 1978. Originally, they were an experimental electronics band, but by the early 1980s had developed into one of the biggest chart topping commercial pop groups in the world.
Ware subsequently helped co-found another electro-pop band Heaven 17 before returning to sound experimentation.
Five years ago, he co-founded Illustrious Co Ltd with Vince Clarke, of Erasure, to investigate the potential of what he calls the heightened reality of three- dimensional sound technology, of which The Future of Sound project is only part.
The other performers at the FACT event on December 6 will include Paul Devereux, who discovered that Neolithic burial grounds resonate at a consistent trance-inducing frequency of 110Hz which he claims shows our ancestors used their ritual sites to create their own mind-altering sounds. He will be joined by Brian Barritt and Flinton Chalk, who will be presenting sounds inspired by archaeo-acoustics, a brand new field of archaeology.
“The audience will be bathed in this incredible synthetic soundtrack which even if it doesn’t send them into trance will certainly leave them feeling a little woozy,” explained Ware, who besides being MC for the evening will be performing his own 3-D wall of sound interpretation of the Human League’s cult disco hit Empire State Human.
Another artist performing in one of the seven 15-minute slots is Lucianna Haill, who will have a device strapped to her head that scans her brainwaves and creates a sound and vision scape.
