To make the two tracks of rhythmic noise below, Manuel Urbanke and Maximilian Hoch first got some empty vinyl. Then, they placed a few blank records on the floor at a few concerts–The Roots, Apparat, Gold Panda, Dedmau5, and Die Antwoord, for what it’s worth–and recovered them at the end of the night.
The pair then took those severely scuffed-up LPs into the studio, recording the noise created by the scratches, and handed them off to musician Daniel Frietag, who arranged the chaos into something artfully palatable.
Urbanke and Hoch’s claims about the work, dubbed “Project Bootleg” –that it represents the “first live recording that is actually made by the crowd,” and “a new form of live recording” –are mostly bunk. It sounds like Frietag made the music, he just used the crowd sounds as source material, and there’s very little here that would give the impression of a concert experience if you didn’t already know the context. Still, it’s hard not to love projects like these, in which artists give themselves a strict set of rules, then do the best work with what they’re allowed. I’d happily listen to at least an EP’s worth of this stuff.
Watch a video about the project above.
