Interesting things

Tree Sounds, Macro Seawater, Haunting Hymns

 

From the archives ~2015

Preamble: This time I shan’t post such a lengthy introduction. You’ll have to forgive the words when they do intrude, poetry always came first and old habits do, in fact, die hard.

The intention of the ‘Interesting Reads’ posts is to share discoveries. They might not always be hot off the press, but old news isn’t necessarily irrelevant or uninteresting. Being first to share isn’t important to me; sharing is.

The Sound Of A Tree

Speaking of old, this is old news in more ways than one: an old set of trees, an old story, an old song. In 2011 Bartholomäus Traubeck created a record player that, using sensors and an algorithm, plays the rings of a tree. Too succinct?

The wood, set on a turntable, plays and is converted into piano music — wonderful, strange music. The songs, which include walnut, ash, beech, oak, and more, are incredible and beautiful. You can listen or purchase online or there’s a vinyl coming out in August 2014.

My favourite is Fraxinus (ash).

And now I want to know what all things sound like when they’re opened up: hillsides, mountains, the surface of the moon, the stars based on light data, pi, the golden ratio. Music is maths.

Discovered via ifuckinglovescience.com

Seawater Up Close

Remember that time you tried to catch a sweet wave on your body board and ended up choking on it? (Perhaps that was just me.) Well, whether you were successful or not I’m certain anyone who has been in the sea has taken a mouthful of it at some point. Try not to picture this next time it happens.

Photograph: David Liittschwager

That’ll be seawater, magnified 25x. And it’s amazing! If you spotted first post I wrote you’ll know I’m a macro, digital perv already. I just find it mind blowing thinking about the amount of miniature life that’s going on, everywhere. More details about the creatures you can see here — copepods, fish eggs, and all sorts of cool shit.

Discovered via ifuckinglovescience.com

A Haunting Hymn

Now, this one’s my favourite. I’ve basically had this video on repeat since my friend posted the link (which was a few months ago) and I have woken up dreaming it more than once.

This now-viral clip is of Icelandic band, Árstíðir, singing an 800 year-old hymn in a German train station. (I have linked from thechive.com, since they seemed to be the only ones to name the band and link back to them.)

I keep trying to find words to describe it; I just can’t explain how it makes me feel. Not sad but bursting in my chest, not happy but if I ceased whilst listening that would be okay. Peaceful, safe, infinite. Like falling off a cliff or floating in the sea.

Check them out on Spotify, and listen out for album number three, funded by Kickstarter, in September this year.

For those that are interested, the song came from a poem written by Kolbeinn Tumason (1173–1208), a powerful chieftan of the Ásbirningar family clan, who wrote the words on his death bed — making him roughly 35 at the time. The music was composed over 700 years later by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson.