Arthur King’s Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Film will premiere at Grand Park’s Our L.A. Voices 2021
The film will be featured on April 15th and an interview between Arthur King’s Peter Walker and Dublab’s Alejandro Cohen will follow on April 22nd
WATCH: Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Official Trailer here
Los Angeles multidisciplinary art studio Arthur King have just been announced as part of the line up for Grand Park’s Our L.A. Voices which is taking place from April 15th-30th. Their upcoming film, Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg), will be shown in full on April 15th. To take a look further into the artistry of Arthur King, a filmed conversation between Arthur King’s Peter Walker and Dublab’s Alejandro Cohen will be screened on April 22nd. Our L.A. Voices will be streamed on Grand Park’s website every night of the event at 6pm PST; Changing Landscapes will also be available for on demand streaming throughout the duration of the fest.
Pre-order the album Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg)
An accompanying experimental documentary short film, and immersive audiovisual gallery exhibition will open in Los Angeles on April 30 and run through May 28th.
Purchase a ticket to the immersive Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Gallery Exhibition
About Arthur King’s Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg):
Arthur King’s Changing Landscapes series can be defined by two factors: process and location. The process, or artistic methodology, is focused primarily on field recordings, and is the unchanging framework that allows the location to truly serve as the focus of the art. Because of this standardized approach, each project in the Changing Landscapes series has the location uniquely embedded into it. For this installment of the series, Arthur King traveled to the Isle of Eigg in Scotland.
Invited to team-up on a weeklong artist residency with Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Arthur King and their newly-inaugurated member spent a week exploring the island, collecting a vast amount of photographic, audio, and video source material. Arthur King recorded the sounds of sheep, wind turbines, streams, waves, the local pub, rain, and wind. They pointed their cameras at souvenir shops, ferry landings, locals tending their gardens, electrical transformers, birds, and cows.
After a week far afield, the members united for an improvised performance. The performance brings the artists’ solitary experiences together in a collective collaboration. Gathered around manipulated video projections that were filmed throughout the week, the group performed at a small house on the island. In addition to more standard instrumentation, Arthur King focuses on utilizing audio material collected from the location, abstracting music in real-time from field recordings. Starting off simply with a single image, a lone field recording, they began to layer their collected artifacts on top of one another, finding associations and breathing life into emerging rhythms and melodies. The improvised performance also doubled as the recording session for the full-length album, creating a lasting musical composite of the remote sonic landscape of the Isle of Eigg.
The finished album opens with a shimmering tremolo synth pad as a medley of field recordings weave in and out. Half-intelligible conversations, a vague rustling, wind, a rooster’s cawing. The pulsing thud of a kick drum slowly creeps in like a heartbeat. The song culminates in a swirl of drum machine and guitar feedback before dissipating into the quiet, plaintive musings of a small church piano that Lytle stumbled across. Raindrops fall on the roof overhead. This palette reaches climactic heights in the album’s opus “Eigg Electric,” a fever pitch of industrial electronic percussion, synthetic drones, and crashing waves. The journey reaches its conclusion in “St. Franny’s,” where an elegiac string synth procession commences as birds chirp and sheep bah in the distance. The album closes with the reverberant trail of a lone dove’s call.
About the filmed conversation piece between Peter Walker and Alejandro Cohen
This interview and sneak peek at the Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Gallery Exhibition features Dublab’s Alejandro Cohen in conversation with Arthur King’s Peter Walker. They discuss the multi-layered project that began on a remote Scottish island, and is now a record, film, and pop-up gallery installation in Los Angeles.
Info on Grand Park’s Our L.A. Voices
Grand Park’s popular spring arts experience, Grand Park’s Our L.A. Voices: A Pop-up Arts+Culture Fest, continues in 2021, with dynamic digital offerings that celebrate the distinctive cultural and artistic richness of Los Angeles’ arts community. The free performing and visual arts exhibition, featuring more than 12 L.A. based artists, will feature new programs on Thursday nights on April 15, 22 and 29, 2021, beginning at 6:00 p.m. on olav.grandparkla.org; all programs will be available for on-demand entertainment. Grand Park’s Our L.A. Voices: A Pop-up Arts+Culture Fest, a TMC Arts program, will feature a mix of live performances and presentations along with recorded programming during a 2.5 hour block each Thursday evening. The three programs aim to reduce the distance between artist and audience by offering at-home engagement opportunities such as talks, conversations and arts-based workshops where people can learn more about the critical issues impacting communities in L.A. County, as seen through an artist’s point-of-view.
Arthur King
Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg)
(AKP Recordings)
[pre-order the LP here]
Street Date: April 16, 2021
Track List:
1. An Sgurr
2. Laig Beach
3. Aigg Electric
4. St. Franny’s
Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Gallery Exhibition opens at 3801 West Sunset Blvd. on April 30th (purchase tickets here). Gallery participants will enter a spatial interpretation of the Scottish Isle of Eigg. Brought to life through projected video, amplified audio and spatial design, participants will enact their own unique lucid dream experience through an amorphous soundscape and visual field. Participants will also be able to preview an experimental documentary short, which was filmed throughout the group’s time on the Isle of Eigg. Led by founding artist Peter Walker, Arthur King has gathered a team of artists, musicians, designers, sound engineers, and filmmakers to transform an office designed by architect Barbara Bestor into a pop-up, immersive gallery. The show runs through May 28th.
Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) is the third installment of the Changing Landscapes series. Explore more at www.whoisarthurking.com
