Swine Song

UK-based Electro-musician Matthew Herbert is known for sampling every day sounds and manipulating them into musical instrumentation for his productions. Herbert has worked “real” sounds into his work since the early 90′s—his first performance featured the sound of a bag of chips. He has released music under a variety of aliases, using everything from human hair to the sound of a person biting into an apple to create music that is not only accessible, but actually danceable as well.

His latest project, ‘One Pig’, documents the sounds of a pig’s life from start to finish, forcing the listener to connect with their food. Each track is a month of a the pig’s life, beginning with the frenzied grunts of feeding to the chewing sounds of a post-butchered, prepared and served meal. Other neat ambient sounds including the crunching of Herbert’s footsteps on snow to the muffled sounds of human voices. The project doesn’t settle for shock; it’s a cohesive piece that would work without the oinks.

Not only does Herbert use the sonic sounds of the pig, the instruments on the album are largely created from the actual pig itself. For example, a drum made of pig’s skin can be heard prominently thumping at the backbone of each song. A custom-instrument was constructed for this endeavor; when played, the pig’s blood moves within tuned reeds, producing other-wordly shrieking sounds.

Herbert’s concept was originally to bridge the gap between animal and meal. The laws preventing Herbert from not only recording, but attending, the actual slaughter of the pig makes a tremendous political statement regarding the secrecy of the food industry. While not a vegetarian himself, he does feel that people do not consider the consequences of their actions.

‘One Pig’, “Morrissey’s least favourite album of all time“, is streaming now on The Guardian.

Details

• Art by

  Matthew Herbert

• Label

  accidental records