Music from the weather in North Wales on 14 different days over one year, ranging from gentle ambient electronica on a cool spring morning to wild, almost Free Jazz as the westerly gales of autumn hit Cardigan Bay.

14 MP3 Songs
ELECTRONIC: Ambient, NEW AGE: Environmental



Details:
WEATHERSONGS VOLUME 1: DAYS IN WALES

Weathersongs volume 1: Days in Wales is an album of 14 short pieces of music derived, in real time, from the weather conditions in Southern Snowdonia on 14 different days over one year. Each track was generated by a computer program connected to an electronic weather station at Richard's home in the foothills of Cadair Idris, North Wales. Data output from the weather station (wind speed and direction, temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall) was used to compose music as conditions changed,then selected results were recorded and edited for audio CD.

All the tracks on the album have common features: Temperature and Humidity provide bass drones; Air Pressure gives higher pitched accompaniment; while the Wind produces a lead voice whose pitch, intensity and phrasing all change as the wind shifts direction, ebbs and flows. Rain, when it rains, is heard as random percussive events (typically bells) whose statistical density changes with the rate of fall. When each track is edited, however, different timbres are applied to the music accentuating the character of the individual pieces/ days. Thus, the music ranges from the gentle ambient electronica of a cool spring morning to wild, almost Free Jazz, saxophone as the westerly gales of autumn hit Cardigan Bay.

BIOGRAPHY: RICHARD GARRETT

Richard Garrett was born in London, UK in 1957 and has been writing music and playing guitar since he was sixteen.

Richard is interested in a wide variety of music. He has played in rock and jazz bands; accompanied poets; and played in the pit for pantomime. For several years, he studied singing, Indian Rag and Cosmic Theatre with French composer/ performer Gilles Petit and has studied jazz with some of the UK's premier musicians. Richard has also studied algorithmic composition with David Cope at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Richard has recorded six albums to date. He has also worked with computers as a programmer, teacher and journalist.

Since 1996, Richard has been working in the field of generative music. His first album in this field, Robot Sculpture (Sunday Dance Music 2001), was produced by taking a number of computer pieces then recording, editing and embellishing them with improvisation.

Some of the pieces used to create Robot Sculpture, along with works by Brian Eno and others, formed part of "Dark Symphony", a mammoth five-day outdoor exhibit at the Ars Electronica Festival 2003 in Linz, Austria.

Richard lives in an isolated Welsh farmhouse, halfway between the mountains of Snowdonia and the sea, with his wife, Heather and son, Sean. There, he writes music and distributes his albums through Sunday Dance Music.