In this Big Sky Documentary Film Festival selection, Scottish composer Erland Cooper buries the only recording of his new album in the ground in his native Orkney. He gives hints to its location in the newspaper while contemplating what the landscape might do to his latest creation.
Part science experiment, Scottish travelogue and meditation on the nature of art, "Recomposing Earth" will appeal to fans of scenic United Kingdom landscapes, shimmering contemporary classical music and land art sculptures like that of Andrew Goldsworthy. It also works in a bit of a mystery and includes a cameo by a Scottish writer well-known in the genre.
The central enigma is a new composition and its creator: Erland Cooper, a 40-something native of Orkney, an archipelago on the country's northern tip.
He grew up inspired by the landscape -- a formidable one whose big sky breaks when the cliffs meet the sea. Like many contemporary composers (John Luther Adams, Caroline Shaw and more), he's written work about the land around him. For this project, though, he envisioned a somewhat unusual project that could be a collaboration or a lost work.
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He wrote a 30-minute piece of music titled, "Carve the Runes Then Be Content with Silence." He assembled an ensemble to record it, transferred it to tape, deleted all digital copies, drove a thousand miles, dug a hole 2 feet deep, buried it, totally exposed to the peaty soil, with his contact information in a tin alongside a copy of the score, and buried it.
If you go
"Recomposing Earth"
Director: Christian Cargill
Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Feed | Omny Studio
Producer: Christian Cargill, John Bannister
2024, United Kingdom, 28 min.
Northwest premiere
Screening at Missoula Children's Theatre, Monday, Feb. 17, 7:45 p.m.
The riddle is whether anyone would find it in a set three-year span and what the natural world might do to his analog tape. It could be erased or given some sort of unexpected timbre. He doesn't say so on camera, but the latter might be what he was after. One of the most famous pieces of ambient music is called "The Disintegration Loops." William Basinski created it after pulling some of his deteriorating old tapes out of storage and made loops and replayed them while recording, so the sound of them falling apart became part of the music.
Director Christian Cargill includes scenic footage of the island along with Cooper elaborating on ideas of patience. He took the title of his music from a line by Orkney poet George Mackay Brown that's inscribed on his gravestone.
The film's tone doesn't exclude some humor. Thankfully, Cooper's friends arrive on camera and lighten it up. Paul Weller, the songwriter behind the classic power-pop band The Jam admiringly calls him "a Scottish enigma," while later saying the idea is genius but "f -- ing bonkers." Sir Ian Rankin, a Scottish novelist known for his detective novels starring Inspector Rebus, admiringly says the idea is "completely goofy."
Cargill includes plenty of music by Cooper, who writes classical that's easily accessible to people who get nervous if they're told they're going to be listening to classical. As an expert put it, he sounds rooted in folk and pop as much as anything else.
Clues are planted to see if anyone can find the bounty. People openly wonder about whether the tape could've been rendered blank. Hovering around the edges is the notion familiar to music nerds: the idea of the lost album, an elusive piece of art that's even more desirable because it's out of your grasp.
Cory Walsh is the arts and entertainment reporter for the Missoulian.
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