WHALE KIT.
is a Russian audiovisual collaborative project between five electronic acts, a vj and whales, where musicians compose original tracks based on the same recordings of whale voices, resulting in a performance, supported by a thematic vj set.

HISTORY.
In spring 2009 "Whale music remixed" cd was released (more about the cd). It's a compilation of tracks originally composed and recorded by a New-York musician and writer David Rothenberg (more about David himself, more about his works on whales), who plays music with birds and whales, remixed by different electronic musicians from around the world. There are two raw tracks with whale voices there, which were included for free remixing. We got an idea to use those recordings for making our own compositions and see how whales can inspire each of us and where musically it will take us.

THE PROCESS.
We started with belugas from the White Sea, a noisy and very varied recording, made by Roman Belikov (Institute of marine science, Moscow) at the Solovetsky islands. Each project made it's own remix/composition based on that track and performed it live on a concert with a vj, who was mixing and mutating different videos of whales, birds, the seas and landscapes.

MORE WHALE MUSIC.
After that we made 5 more tracks with the second recording from the cd – a solo humpback whale from somewhere near Hawaii. And the music was completely different.

BEHIND THE SOUNDS.
The idea of the whole thing was of course to make an interesting performance. But actually the fact that a man can be inspired by an animal, who can make such cool sounds, to make some common sounds, make music together, is quite amazing. For everyone in the project that was a true experience and experiment. And now you can hear a drum kit made out of whale voices, a brass section or background singers along with original music pieces composed and performed by five Karelian electronic acts, supported by a vj-set and some whales.