Fog Music Poster
Aural Films Fog Music Project
Aural Films started a project earlier this year to produce a series of recordings with a common theme: Fog. But, if that were all there was to the concept it would not be exceptional. Instead, jack Hertz made this project a real challenge for all the artists, and the listeners of the releases on his label by stating that he wanted to release a full twenty-four hours of music based on this theme.
In the hands of many traditional record labels, this would have been an unfathomable challenge. But, in the hands of Jack Hertz, it came as little surprise to anyone when he posted the following image on the Aural Films Facebook page on October 23rd:
Mission Accomplished
Releases So Far
As of this writing, the first nineteen volumes have been released in the Fog Music series, including some absolutely stellar pieces from Cousin Silas, Scott Lawlor, Mister Vapor, Robert Scott Thompson, Big City Orchestra, Christopher Alvarado, Ade Hodges and many others.
The works form an amazing tapestry of interpretations from the mysterious, to the chilling, to visual interpretations. For example, Fog Music 1 by Cousin Silas evokes the distorted half-images of being lost in the fog, while Fog Music 8 by Big City Orchestra invokes the mood of the fog drifting off the shoreline with the warning sound of fog horns in the distance.
It’s absolutely fascinating to put these works together and listen to them one after another, as we found on At Water’s Edge when Rebekkah Hillgraves previewed 5 releases from the series on a show titled Fog Music Preview.
Fog Music Volume 1
And, since then, Aural Films has compiled the first eight hours of Fog Music into a DVD release that contains both high-quality FLAC encodings and MP3’s, along with a PDF file full of notes on each of the releases. But there has been another twist to this whole project….
Fog Raiser / Fog Music Festival
Fog Music Live 1
Jack has taken another step with the Fog Music concept and extended it to live performances. January 28-31st, 2015 there will be a Fog Music Festival held in San Francisco, California. In order to raise funds for this event several artists recently got together held a Fog Raiser concert. A recording from the show is available from the Aural Films BandCamp site as Fog Music Live 1.
I’m quite astonished by the depth which Jack Hertz has pursued this project. I hadn’t foreseen the addition of the live concert series, as well as a festival to this project, but it seems like a natural out-growth for it, especially given that the fog in San Francisco is possibly only rivaled by the fog that settles in over London or Scotland at times.
All of the Fog Music recordings are available from the Aural Films BandCamp site. The digital downloads are available on a Name Your Price basis, while the DVD is $18USD. Pleae support this massive project, it’s a rare and unique opportunity to bring a extremely large, and ambitious concept to life.
