Press

Fetter and Air was originally created by composer Dominick DiOrio and sound engineer Justin “JG” Geller as an eight channel public soundscape/display in Philadelphia. It’s now been remixed to stereo and released as a CD. It’s a kind of COVID memorial. Members of the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia separately recorded their reactions to the pandemic and DiOrio set some of it to music. The result was 562 audio files which were then mixed down into a single twenty-seven minute track.

It’s a weird and somewhat disturbing experience. I strongly suggest listening to it on headphones to get the full “mess with your head” experience because it really is engineered in (at least) three dimensions. There’s spoken word, vocalism of various types and ambient sounds. Sometimes it’s sparse sometimes it’s dense. There’s a full gamut of emotions from anxiety, pain, anger, loneliness, loss of you name it to empathy, optimism, love and even hope. Though, on that last note it has to be said that this was recorded in May last year just as it looked like there might be light at the end of the tunnel.

I don’t know whether I “enjoyed” listening to this or not but I’m glad I did as it’s really quite a powerful experience. It’s now available as a digital download or on various streaming services or even (for free) on Youtube. Details and links here.