Obscurities
‘Obscurities’ is an album with a story or, more correctly, a whole collection of stories. It was inspired by the collection of under-used instruments, mostly quirky handmade items or things rescued from flea markets, that has grown since my move to Vienna. Starting from a series of blog posts describing the instruments and processes behind each piece of music, the project grew into something altogether bigger.
In addition to the music already featured in the blog, the final album includes another 16 pieces of music that were recorded at the same time, but not released (these do NOT appear in the track list shown, but are included as bonus tracks in the final download).
The whole album has a Creative Commons (BY-CC) licence, which means you can freely share it, use it in podcasts, films or online projects, just so long as you credit it to Mick Bordet and include a link to this website in whatever you produce.
In addition to the music, the download contains a full-colour pdf booklet that describes each track along with photographs of all the instruments, and a pdf file of a novella that accompanies the music.
The novella (also called “Obscurities”) introduces a character from a forthcoming book, who discovers a box full of instruments and learns the story behind each one: a story that forms her own personal history and leads her to learn about her ancestors and herself. Yes, each of the instruments she finds is one of those used in the album and each has a very different tale to tell.
The eBook is also available at Smashwords in formats for all the usual eReaders.
As if that wasn’t enough, the story also appears in audio podcast form over at Every Photo Tells…
The audio version of the story includes snippets of music from the album, so is also a good way to hear some of the music and immerse yourself in the story at the same time.