Whilst working in Finsbury Park I was introduced to Alexandre Yemaoua Dayo who runs Finsbury Park’s Drumming School, which if any of you have ever entered Finsbury Park from the Finsbury Park Station entrance you would have been likely to have heard the African drumming, seen the low building painted with images of drums all around it and maybe even sneaked a look at the beautiful little garden round the back. Often young and older guys are hanging out chatting, drinking and smoking. If you happen to stop and chat you will find out is a very welcoming place.
I had an idea that the machine would produce sounds that related to the weather. After talking with Alex and his collaborator David Kemp about the project we came up with the idea to use the weather data recorded by the machine (temperature, rainfall, windspeed and whether the weather is average, precedented or unprecedented for the time of year) was then translated into different word based descriptions – for example hot, wet, windy and unexpected – that Alex, Dave and the other musicians they worked with turned into the most amazing sounds that were influenced by Alex’s African roots, English weather and sounds from nature.
One person said that once the sounds started to come out of the machine it changed personality, and came to life. We are hoping to do more work with these sounds and to be able to continue to work together as the project develops over the next few years and returns to Finsbury Park next Autumn.
The sounds of the machine are:
David Kemp ( Arranger,saxophone , over tuned flute )
Miles Ncube ( birds sound )
Indira Lemouchi ( meaninglessness word and vocal)
Alex Dayo (composer and arranger)
Percussion, water drums, rain-sticks, kalimba, flute, vocal, bells and whistles