sound pipes, visual pipes...

a cdv of an anonymous bagpipe player taken in leeds, uk, circa 1880; and an early silvertone 78 rpm disc featuring pipe major j. starck. certainly the atmosphere of touch and age upon these two seems perfectly in sync; as the dust, blurs, and dissolving background in the photo tend to have a similar percentage of distraction and disintegration as the surface noises on the music. the beautiful thing about the recording is that normally bagpipes are the loudest acoustic instrument, and here, buried beneath noise and a thick shellac mono surface, the instrument sounds relatively small and dreamy. whereas the acoustic presence might scare the bees from the honey, the gentle presence in the recording might attract the butterflies.

click here to listen to foughaballagh.