Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County!

Almost a Year ago Mr. H and I went the the Natural History Museum during a trip to LA. I heard an interview with the band Matmos about a sound project they had worked on for the Museum. When I saw an image of them preforming live in the "Hall of North American Mammals"I knew I really really wanted to see the place for myself. Sonic Scenery, a assemblage of music in response to the Museum collection, had come and gone by the time we visited but I was able to find some information about it online. And it still lives on in the form of an Audio tour CD you can buy here!

The Sonic website explains: "The Natural History Museum has invited a spectrum of innovative musicians and composers to create music inspired by our collections.

Experience a different perspective as you don headphones and explore the Museum to new sounds by The Sun Ra Arkestra, Ozomatli, Autolux, Nels Cline, Matmos, Stephen Hartke, Nobody, Jon Hassell, Languis and David J. The exhibition is introduced by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Each composition was commissioned expressly for one of the galleries on the Museum's Level 1. Like the recent Conversations exhibition, Sonic Scenery was developed to provide visitors with an opportunity to find new meaning and relevance in the Museum's collections."

Languis "Mending Spear, Part II"

"Feeding peanut butter to a friend's dog, we built up a basic library of mammalian lip-smacking, huffing, barking, whining, sniffling, and breathing noises, and combined this with a percussive battery of antler noises made by smacking deer antlers against each other and some softer rustling textures harvested by stroking and rubbing the pelt of a wolf." -Matmos

"The work is divided into miniature 'cells,' which stand in for the seventeen distinct dioramas/environments and animal species represented in the room, and this is split down the middle by a central section that corresponds to the large bison display at the far end of the room. Our work is intended to be a sound map of a walk through this room and is paced to coincide with a five-to-seven-minute counterclockwise walk through its contents." - Matmos

Mr. H and I and a few bones