Inscape, the duo of Eric La Casa and Jean-Luc Guionnet, have worked together regularly since 1998. Here they offer various views of an installation set up in a disused postal sorting office situated behind an old railway station, a part of the Audioframes Festival held in Lille in 2004. They set up many microphones and video cameras and ran everything into a central "listening point", mixing the various inputs live. The excerpts supplied here are akin to an electro-acoustic improvisation; indeed it could be a couple of guys with laptops full of field recording files, though I suppose that's not the point.

It is at the very least an intriguing way of working with sound, transforming an environment, or drawing a participants' attention to the details of a space or set of spaces. As a recorded document, it's a fascinating collection of sounds, ably mixed and sequenced. We hear environmental sounds like traffic or duct work air-flow, crowds and weather, processed building ambience and occasional music. The sound flits back and forth between far-off rumbles and washes to very close-up mechanical sounds or rain on windows and pavement. The changes are quick and the pair doesn't seem to stay on any one aspect for long. It kept my ears focused for the entirety of it's 53 minute running time. I only wonder what the video component consisted of. How about a DVD next time guys?

La Casa, Eric / Jean-Luc Guionnet: Inscape. Lille-Flandres Is On Sale at Squidco!