Why Christopher Coe's 'Pick Up The Phone' is a truly special project
In the Autumn of 2018 Christopher Coe was invited to collaborate with a group of West of Ireland artists in their home town of Westport on a musical project.
These artists, known collectively as The Upstarters for this project, are a group of people who live with intellectual disability. They have worked together under the guidance of two local artists Grainne O’Reilly and Caroline Masterson to produce numerous artistic works over the course of many years.
In 2018 they decided it was time to make some dance music.
And so ensued a series of collaborative sessions over the course of 6 weeks with Coe as guest artist and producer of the project. Together they recorded the sounds of their environment such as slapping the side of a wooden boat, or sticks on iron railings, bells and whistles. Then they went to a local studio and recorded drums, vocals, random percussion. They experimented with the synths that Coe brought with him and used their voices to create strange and atmospheric expressions.
The result of these creative sessions were a number of quirky and powerful techno tunes. The first couple of which we release here.
No No No features the voice of Sarah who in this piece speaks with one word; “No” which she uses with such expression and in a variety of tones. All the sounds in the track were created by the group and collated by Coe to create a powerful percussive techno piece. For example, the percussion in the 2nd half of the piece was actually the sound of the whole group “playing” an old wooden boat wreck with their hands..
Pick Up The Phone features Maire’s voice, she whispers almost eerily into the microphone something that is barely recognisable, Maire doesn’t speak often, but on this particular day she felt compelled to step up to the microphone and with such powerful intent that the whole track was built around her vocal. The live drums were played by Gerry, another member of the group.
The artwork for the release was created as a lino cut by group member Anna Rose, and was taken by our designer Gustav Von Platen and brought into line with the ASW visual style. But the original energetic lines and strokes are still there, created in response to the music.
Coe says of the experience: “it was such a privilege to work together with these people in such an open and creative way. They taught me a lot about just letting go and not worrying too much about the outcome. They were so open to experimentation and also really had no concern about whether something was cool, or considered or “appropriate”. They reminded me of the joy of simply creating. And we became great friends. I love them! “
Carl has been playing the tracks since the start of the year and he loves that they stand up beside any serious techno track out there, but the fact that they came from such a project and group of people makes these tracks all the more interesting and rich. Techno really is for everyone!
This project was supported by Mayo Co. Council Arts Office, The Custom House Studios and Western Care association. Born in the west of Ireland. Article credit here.