Open the Window
Linear Obsessional Recordings put out an open call at the end of last year for submissions for the compilation ‘Open the Window’, asking for two minute field recordings taken from open windows. Within Breathing Space we often use field recordings in our own music so I asked the other members to contribute to the open call. I then compiled the three recordings that came through.
The concept got me thinking of different types of window, the ones you look out of often and sounds you hear often, and then those you don’t often open, that provoke memories. We interestingly all chose the latter - far away windows, windows in other peoples homes, audio postcards of spaces we have memories of, rather than the windows of our everyday encounters. Melaina recorded from a window in Portugal, Hannah’s from her late father’s studio and mine from a recent trip to Sardinia, a dramatic thunder storm.
Open The Window by Stephen Shiell
View from Melaina’s window in Portugal.
Window in Sardinia where I recorded the thunder storm.
Painting by Roy White - the title of the track came from the title of this painting ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ - Hannah was wrapping this painting as the recording from the studio was being made.
If we use the act of opening a window as a metaphor, then it usually implies some kind of clearing of the air, of letting fresh air in - of transforming the interior environment, often to cool things down. When you open a window you invite the exterior world to co-mingle with your own often self-contained environment.
Richard Sanderson, from the booklet for the ‘Open the Window’ compilation