Introduction
Artist: Canned Fit
Title / Release Page: Cucharas De Arena
Release Date: 2015 Jan 09
Genre: Electronic / Experimental
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Media: MP3
Pricing: Free / Donation
Label: Pan Y Rosas Discos
Rating: ★★★★★★★★
On Canned Fit: Cucharas De Arena Christine Schörkhuber has found an approach to combining vocals, found sounds and abstract instrumentation that surpasses many recent attempts to produce music that is accessible to a large audience. While this is still far from a mainstream work, the appeal will not be lost on many listeners.
Canned Fit: Cucharas De Arena
Christine Schörkhuber is an Austrian artist known more of her installation pieces than as a recording artist. However, as Canned Fit she draws on her installations to present a series of seven audio pieces that one might find in a gallery.
What differentiates these works from those of other artists is the way in which found sounds are used organically to build rhythm and structure for the pieces. On Echolot, the sound of a sonar ping and rushing wind form provide a sense of locating oneself. The wind might blow in one direction or another, but the pings pull the focus to one place, and become more rapid as the listener centers in on their destination.
Circling In A Square is the first piece to present vocal content. The piece starts with the wind again, but is punctuated by the sound of sticks clicking against each other, and rubbing against strings. The vocal “Circling in a square…” swirls around in the wind with the listener, before the clicks and scratches erupt into a rhythmic counterpoint.
Fragile starts with strings being rubbed and strummed, while a a drum machine provides a minimal beat that holds the center of the piece. The vocal “Fragile is the capacity of your middle class morality…” challenges the listener to adjust their perception of their world, just as the instruments jostle the mind and environment around the vocal. The idea seems to be to challenge the things that appear to be tenuous around us, the things that might break with the simplest nudge or jostle.
Animal Psychology appears, at first to be the most removed from the idea of mixing rhythms and structure of found sounds with musical forms. The piece starts off with a stream of white noise that seems at first pointless, until a rhythm starts to emerge. Eventually the noise is supplemented by a drum machine and simple keyboard lines and a vocal arise to form the noise into a song.
Conclusion
The line(s) drawn between ambient, noise, and experimental works are often seen as hard and somewhat strict. By pulling on her work as an installation artist, Christine Schörkhuber has created Canned Fit: Cucharas De Arena as a series of works that feel like installation soundsscapes. Each piece is built on the rhythm of the found sounds she has chosen as opposed to forming the sound clips to fit the rhythm she wants (as is typical in most trip-hop style works these days). It’s a very engaging work, very different from what we are used to hearing, and yet not so far away that listeners cannot relate to the works and feel the experiences contain within.