Paul Panhuysen

1992 release (RARE - light storage wear) ** All of these Apollo albums have a tendency towards the odd, but this is one of the more eccentric. During 1990 and 1991, Paul Panhuysen "collaborated" with a group of canaries, keeping them in his studio, and featuring them as part of his exhibitions. He experimented with different ways of recording the sounds they made, attaching contact microphones to their cages and exploring the use of different types of effects processing. More intriguingly, he experimented with ways of inducing them to sing, singing himself or playing a variety of instruments to see how they responded (think of this as a free improv team-up and you're on the right lines). After the first few minutes, it's easy to feel as if listening to a whole hour of random clatterings and occasional bird whistles will be an impossible chore, but the more I listen to this album, the more that feeling disappears (largely thanks to Panhuysen's ability to apply his effects judiciously and subtly). It's hardly my favourite out of these recordings, but the intricate, crystal clear canary-song has an inescapable charm.