[whalesong]

‘The whale moves in a sea of sound:
Shrimps snap, planton seethes,
Fish croak, gulp, drum their air-bladders,
And are scrutinised by echo-location,
A light massage of sound
Touching the skin.’
(Whale Nation, Heathcote Williams)

A sound piece on choice, voice, and our impending doom. Technologist and water freak XVelastín presents an absurd cross-arts performance about noise in the oceans. Starring a submarine captain, underwater singing, digital sound manipulation, an overhead projector, a love song to cetaceans (both toothed and baleen), and a very lonely whale.

[whalesong] is a subversive, submersive experience; it hates plastic and loves blowholes. It’s inspired by the way humanity has stolen whales’ voices, using technology to manipulate their language and vindicate us from the destruction of their acoustic ecology. It repurposes the same techniques to present a sonic alternative.

The only sound piece at this year’s Camden Fringe, [whalesong] is a unique musical performance that has to be heard. It’s sonically reminiscent of a mixture between Laurie Anderson, Trevor Wishart and Chris Watson, with the theatrical absurdity of Samuel Beckett, and the composition-environmentalism of Björk’s Biophilia.