Greetings QQers,
I can now report that my main speakers, Dahlquist DQ-10s, are back on-line and sounding beautiful. As promised I have now given Bilocation 1 several close listenings and I herewith present my findings.
Not exactly a musical album (in the sense of songs), certainly not a sound effects record, Bilocation 1 is a forty minute Aural Collage, presented by Steve Marshall as one single track. The piece contains creative musical and sonic compositions as well as blended found ambient and natural recordings. It is mixed exclusively to 5.1, with no stereo mix presented or intended. The inner sleeve of the package gives extensive coverage to speaker positioning and surround system setup.
During my communications with Steve, he forwarded me a Word document with full details of the recording sources, and these are not contained in the liner notes. I highly recommend these notes to anyone who owns the recording, and will gladly send them to anyone who asks. Please PM me with an email address and specify if you do not have Microsoft Word. I can easily convert this to a text only file.
What of the content? I would call this a well-constructed sonic journey, the latter term aptly used in the subtitle: 'this is a journey." It is almost a round-the-world trip on a disc, although on closer reading the recordings are mostly from England and India. But one might not know the geographical limitation from a listen, as there are many unique sonic sources here. Other geographic locations hinted at are Australia, The Orient, and south Siberia.
Some of the sonic delicacies herein include the requisite thunder (some at quite close range), vocal overtones, E-Bowed guitars, a Roland SH101 synthesizer, fireworks, a horse called George galloping up a hill called the Rifle Butts in Epping Forest, motorbikes whizzing around the Wall of Death fairground attraction, 30 didgeridoo players at the Glastonbury Festival contrasted against a Karnatic folk group in a park in Bijapur India playing Double Clarinets (each about 5’ long), a steam train near Tanjore India, a funny little kid on a fair ride, and some processed sitar for good measure.
Each of these is either accurately captured as a surround image or placed creatively in the surround space. Again, sound sources do not tend to be isolated as one might hear on an effects record, but rather blended creatively to form an impression. Part of Steve's mission seems to be to document unique sonic spaces such as a dome called the Golgumbaz in Bijapur, Karnataka, India and the Great Temple in Madurai, South India. There are also church spaces in England. Another technique Steve uses on some recordings is to take captured sound and reproduce it within a new sonic space with some added movement to create more of an ambient surround effect, this rather than pure studio mixing. Many of the movements include ambient musical interludes which tend to be meditative and not percussive.
To buy or not to buy? My personal preference in surround recording is musical. I just happen to be a music nut, so that is what I focus on. I do have a few ambient recordings such as Solitude - Thunderstorm and parts of Dr. Chesky's Magnificent… 5.1 Surround Show. In general these others are interesting for a single listen. Bilocation 1 belongs in a different category. It is a thoughtful composition, and I found it enjoyable through repeated listenings. If the descriptions above sound at all intriguing to you, I can recommend this disc as a good purchase.
I still have two copies available to mail to USA addresses for $18 each. The first two PMs get them, and then I am (for now) out of the resale business. I am not taking any profit on the sale of these discs, and the money went directly to Steve Marshall.
Thanks to Steve for making the effort to send these to me, and particularly for making the effort to fill our ears with interesting surround sound! The title is "Bilocation 1:" tantalizing as I am pretty sure this is the only one in the series so far. Maybe if we can sell out his stock he'll do another one.
See you around!
Ken