Ensemble Dedalus + eRikm: Fata Morgana

If you have the belief that your house plants are talking amongst themselves, you may not be crazy. French composer and electronics musician Erikm aka Eric Matt, with the help of the experimental chamber Ensemble Dedalus, transmutes sounds created beyond the frequencies of human hearing into a spectrum accessible to our limited range. This process reveals a world of creatures and natural phenomena that, unless you were working in a specific scientific discipline, may never suggest itself to you.

The artist eRikm has worked as a turntablist and sound artist, collaborating with the likes of Christian Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Christian Marclay, and Martin Tetreault. Here he enlists the six-piece Ensemble Dedalus to interpret the inaudible (to us) sounds made into notes by the MIDI code, and finally, eRikm composes and arranges the materials along with field recordings from microphones placed in natural areas on all four continents. The sounds are Fata Morgana, a sonic mirage. Like a visual mirage, where you might convince yourself you see something that is not there, the sounds of imperceptible neutrinos, "Ambre Gris" or sperm whales' intestinal wax, microscopic insects, are made real. At least as a kind of phantasmagoria.

The ensemble's interpretations open and close the recording in an insect and amphibian habitat. These are strangely familiar realms with strings and brass interpreting the alien sounds transposed for the chamber ensemble mixed with the field recordings. The sounds are extraterrestrial yet—and this is the terrifying thing—they are all around us. Think about this the next time you step on a spider or trim a hedge.