We are very pleased to finally announce the first Sonic Fields project, The Leaf Library’s Everybody Is Very Tired. Sonic Fields commissions new works from artists working with sound and experimental musicians with a brief that they must seek to engage, collaborate and encourage participation throughout the project’s development.
Everybody Is Very Tired is part 1 of The Leaf Library’s project. Commissioned and written during the lockdown of 2020, the piece and its accompanying film draws from this difficult time. Its funereal tones matching the film footage as the camera ascends into the clouds and the repetitive drone of the music representing the monotony we all felt during our time at home. For part 2 however, the band would like to strike a more positive note. As restrictions are lifted and some semblance of hope for the future is re-established, they would now like your help in producing a new work that represents our collective return to life.
In order to complete Part 2 of their project, The Leaf Library are requesting that you send in field recordings that, to you, represent LIFE. You don’t need professional equipment to do this, your phone will suffice. Sent your recordings to curator Kris Day kris@kristianday.co.uk
The Leaf Library are a north London band playing experimental dream-like music built on layers of chiming guitars, pulsing electronics, noise and looping drones. They have released three studio albums as well a number of electronic and experimental albums and EPs, remix compilations and long form tracks. They have released five Monument CDRs; an on-going series of experimental solo and side projects on their Objects Forever imprint. The band have collaborated with musicians as diverse as singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow and Iskra Strings, and have provided music for a number of exhibitions, films and performances.
Matt Ashton of The Leaf Library says of the project “Everybody Is Very Tired is an atmospheric and slowly building instrumental, written at the tail end of 2020, its elegiac pace and unfurling synths a weary tribute to the heavy year just past. The accompanying film slowly lifts the viewer away from the garden of a former funeral home, up through the mist of an early winter morning, an accidental cortege just visible before we are finally enveloped in cloud.
If the first stage of the project is an acknowledgement of the ‘end’ then it made sense to focus on life for the second stage. The band will be using crowd-sourced field recordings on that theme to make another piece of music for the project.”