david edren ~ music for mimosa pudica & codariocalyx
(kankyo records, 2023 reissue)
"in the making of this album, david erden was influenced by mort garson, known for
his plant music, and the film "the secret life of plants" and jack mitsch's documentary "mind of plants," among others, and he sprouted kodalyocalyx and mimosa pudica (tussock) seeds and documented their
growth. this work, based on these observations and experiences, is a
fresh ambient that gives a bird's-eye view of a small, lovely, boxy
world and the activities of these plants with their mysterious moving
properties" ~ kankyo records
ana has already posted this album when it originally came out on CD (8 years ago!) accompanying a book and now it sees a reissue on cassette with a beautiful booklet at this great japanese label/store run by h. takahashi.
music for plants seems to establish itself as a standalone genre already, with its roots being as deep as Mort Garson's famous Plantasia. this genre assumes that plants enjoy simplistic/minimalist and playful analog synth sounds and it's hard to tell if there's hard evidence to that or it's because Plantasia sounded that way ~ probably a mixture of both. plants do seem to react better to the pure tones rather than complex polyphony but there's clearly not enough studies on that. though, in case of this cassette it's more closer to the reality, as David Edren actually played his music sketches to two plants known for their sensitivity to movement and touch, including the movement of air. once again it's up to human's interpretation whether plants liked those sounds or not, but going by intuition it is possible (i believe) to draw an outline. in the end, David tells in the interview that with such music what's more important is to positively affect not the plants themselves but our relationship with them. ~ piedpaper (tape_stuff)
