“Seven Blues” uses recordings with a connection to time and
place. Sounds of nature, cities, historical cites.
Also humans - some children here-and-now, some singing, some
explaining historical events, some historical recordings.
Numbers, counting, dividing is central to music. Here numbers
are used in two significant ways: establishing the overall
form, and directly conceivable - counting, the sound of
numbers, years in history, measured distances.
“Seven Blues” is composed for binaural listening using
headphones. This technique makes it possible to decouple your
ears, place them somewhere in the outer world, while your body
remains at home in your favourite chair. The listener gest
displaced to large squares, remote countries, cramped spaces,
inside, outside, something close - without going anywhere.
In parts of the piece you are situated in giant caves 327
meters below the surface, deep down in the saltmines of
Wieliczka outside Krakow, Mines being active from ca. year
1200 to 2007, with mine shafts stretching more than 300 km.
The video part of of “Seven Blues” consists of fragments from
Moritz Nachtsterns book: "Falskmynter i blokk 19". Nachtstern
was a Norwegian jew, displaced to Sachsenhausen during world
war II. He originally worked as a typograper, and the nazis
set him to counterfeit British pound notes, to be spread over
England and destroy the English economy.
Nachtstern was one of around 30 Norwegian jews surviving the war.
Format: Electroacoustic video, Binaural
Anders Vinjar - 2021