Sounding Seams by Clang Sayne

Clang Sayne's Sounding Seams EP is the final output from a project that began in 2018 when the Irish National Heritage Park in my home town of Wexford invited me (Laura) to respond to the ancient art of metal forgery.

Taking inspiration from a myth about Pythagoras' encounter with a blacksmith and his ensuing vision of a musical cosmos (the music of the spheres), I disappeared down a rabbit hole of cosmic esoterica, home-made chimes and the harmonic series. 40-odd DIY chimes, a giant chime sculpture, a baby, and a pandemic later, I finally got to make some music:

These four songs explore themes of chaos, order and the mystery of the cosmos, and were recorded live in the Crannog (a prehistoric circular mud building) of the Heritage Park in June 2022. They feature long-standing Clang Sayne collaborators, Carolyn Goodwin (woodwinds) & Matthew Jacobson (drums), guest player, Caimin Gilmore (double bass), and the many birds, park visitors and motorists of the neighbouring N11 bypass.

Both the album artwork (microscopic photos of metal) and the title, 'Sounding Seams' refer to Pythagoras' conviction that if the properties of harmonic order & beauty are intrinsic to crude metal, hewn from a seam of the Earth, then they must also apply to the cosmos at large, and everything within it.

Described as ‘venturers in the post-genre slip stream, weaving folk, improv, art pop and contemporary classical into new material that is soft on the ear but tough as leather.’ (Cormac Larkin, Irish Times).

Laura Hyland (compositions, voice), Carolyn Goodwin (woodwinds, voice), Matthew Jacobson (drums, voice)

clangsayne.com