Hotel Mexicana is a stereo composition made from hotel-room voice practice sessions during a Mexico tour in 2006, documenting the changing moods of that journey: Marinetti meets Tavener I’say… So, imagine me sitting on a bed, laptop on the night table with my trusted cheap head mic plugged straight into it and you won’t be too far from reality.
As the mic isn’t exactly the best on the market and it’s also done sans soundcard, there is a certain raw feel to the sound – and I have tended to wack up the effects in places. I really like the way you can hear the materiality of the situation in the recording! The result is a rather curious, private piece, a performance entirely without an audience.
Whilst the original recordings were made in 2006, the piece itself was compiled in 2010 from a series of shorter segments, without, however, any additional processing. Listen to it as an mp3 below, but be warned, it is a long one!
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Made possible by a Clinker Bursary For Artistic Excellence at Visiones Sonoras, National University of Mexico. Thanks also to Rodrigo Sigal (Mexican Center for Music and Sonic Arts, Morelia) who invited me over, and Israel Martinez who kindly organised concerts and radio shows for me – and generously showed me the sites!
If you’d like to see some of my photographs of the trip, here are some slide shows documenting the journey, from Mexico City, Morelia, Guadalajara and yes, beaches…
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