Released February 23, 2024 as part of the Mortality Tables LIFEFILES project. LIFEFILES are creative exchanges. Recordings of places, people, objects, moments in time, environments and quotidian events are shared with a range of artists working with sound. Those artists are then free to respond to the recordings in any way they like, either through manipulation or composition.
For LF17/Edinburgh, I created three soundscapes based on source recordings from Edinburgh, undoubtedly imbued with my own recent trip to Scotland in 2023.
Best Of
Review Excerpts
“Calton Hill” sounds weirdly like the more ambient sections of Queen’s soundtrack for Flash Gordon; “Princes Street Gardens” traces a stroll not through the city streets but the shallow tropical lagoons which came long before. Given a set of urban field recordings, it’s reasonable to expect the result might be far less fantastical and strange, but Kelly always finds weirdness in the everyday. – The Wire
The three electro ambient tracks, each named after a location in Edinburgh where the original field recordings were made (“Calton Hill,” “Princes Street Gardens,” “Calton Road Cobblestones”), are soothing and otherworldly, occasionally employing synthesizers to flirt with more unsettling undertones. The end result only hints at the original recordings, Kelly’s production leaving the faintest memory of the actual time and place, like stepping into a dream reality. – ANTIGRAVITY Magazine
A sonic experiment that makes use of open ambience and recordings to create enveloping sonic spaces. Ominous may be the history behind these buildings, yet through Elizabeth Joan Kelly’s viewpoint, the richness is exposed. The listener is welcomed to this place, historic, weathered but endearing. – listencorp
Calton Hill is five minutes of ethereal chording with a slow voice-like melody. The tones are light but with a hint of anxiety. Princes Street Gardens is based on looped rhythmic structures reminiscent of old-school works from Dockstader and others. Over these, Kelly places a dialog between echoing effects and horn-like themes. Calton Road Cobblestones finishes things up with sparse string-plucking and drones. The latter grow ominous as the piece ends. – Avant Music News
the sounds of a vibrant city are rendered, smoothed, with cross-hatching, delicate shading, some light smudging, a soft blending, by which everything clamorous is faded out to leave a slow hazing. – Aural Aggravation
The latest installment in the Lifefiles series from Mortality Tables features the excellent New Orleans-based composer Elizabeth Joan Kelly. Lifefiles are field recordings, usually made by the label’s Mat Smith, and handed over to an artist to respond to recordings however they see fit. Here EJK gets three recordings made in Edinburgh in August 2021 and responds with three warm soundscapes. Knowing Mat, the recordings won’t be random. There’s always a story with this label. – Moonbuilding
Elizabeth Joan Kelly 