Matthew Herbert and London Contemporary Orchestra - The Horse [CD]

The album, released by Modern Recordings BMG worldwide, will be one continuous piece of music, made with a complete horse skeleton, 30+ musicians, bone flutes, horseskin drums, original mechanical instruments, pelvic lyres, electronics, cement mixer.

With an exploration of music’s origins and rhythm in particular at its heart it will begin quietly and slowly and gradually accelerate throughout, getting bigger and faster until by the end it is in a kind of frenzy. The orchestration will include the bones from a horse skeleton, flutes made from its bones, the traditional instruments of the London Contemporary Orchestra, and sampled recordings of a horse’s life.

It will demonstrate, through the choice of sounds, the story of music from its distant origins in the form of bone flutes (similar to the oldest musical instrument), via more traditional musical instruments to cutting edge electronics and sampling. The opening horse bone flutes, made by Henry Dagg, will be played by Shabaka Hutchings. The final electronics will contain instruments and techniques developed by some of the UK’s most interesting musical inventors.