Daniel Kordík’s Syria
Published October, 2013
by Easterndaze
Field recordings have been used and abused in music and sonic art forever, but it’s the method of processing and juxtaposition, which causes the effect. Syria is by default a rewarding sonic source for any zealous field recorder, buzzing with sounds and boasting with an enviable musical history. Syrian dabke, has reached global underground stardom thanks to Omar Souleyman. Daniel Kordík, one half of the Slovak hardware electronics noodle duo Jamka, has delivered an aural assemblage of his recordings made in 2011. “[Sy][ria] consists of 5 compositions based mainly on sound from field recordings made between April and May 2011 on various locations across Syria. These include Damascus, Maaloula, “Road 90″ to Palmyra, Deir ez-Zur, Aleppo and Hama and their surrounding areas. Due to security reasons when the government forces were trying to suppress the start of the uprising, I used only my Sony portable minidisc recorder with its internal microphone.
The album is a haunting memento to what eventually happened in Syria. A country ravaged by unrest and political upheaval. This sense of tension and disembodied anticipation and sounds, is translated onto Kordík’s record, some parts of the first track sounding as if they could be Pharmakon’s intro. “Based on the ongoing events in Syria that would eventually break the country down into pieces, I cut my initial field recordings into small fragments and re-arranged them into new compositions. At the end I decided to add two more tracks made on Vostok synthesiser.”. Francisco López, the doyen of field recording, championed “transcendental listening”, and this record is, in-itself, a great example of suspense and orchestration of ready-made sounds, with or without knowing the context and origin of the sounds.