Mark Vernon – Lend An Ear, Leave A Word (Kye records – Kye 44)
Audio Archaeology series Vol.1: Lisbon
Available from: Kye (U.S.), Penultimate Press (UK), Infinite Limits (UK).
The pieces composed for this album combine field recordings of contemporary Lisbon with found tape recordings from the past; reel-to-reel tapes, micro-cassettes and Dictaphones collected from the Feira de Ladra market, a popular and lively flea market in the Alfama district.
Each tape recording is an audio snapshot of a specific time; a family album in sound, a musical performance, a compilation of treasured music or even just the fun of playing around with a tape recorder captured for posterity. Every thoughtless edit or push of the record button teleports us to a different time and place. The musical material extracted from the tapes is also an evocative signifier that locates it within a specific era. All of the pieces that make up the album explore one particular environment – the city of Lisbon. Field recordings by their very nature are time-based but the introduction of found tapes into the mix expands the timescale of these studies from just the short period spent in the city making recordings, backwards to possibly forty or more years in the past. It is a portrait in time
and place, an archaeology of sound. The result of the audio flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shores of low commerce in the flea markets of Lisbon.
Artwork: A Sense of Someplace / www.asenseofsomeplace.org
‘Lend an ear, leave a word’ arrives in a full color matte stock sleeve with insert and download card that features additional pieces left off the record due to time constraints of the LP format.
Mastered by Jason Lescalleet in an edition of 400.
