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Loom

from Loom by The Orbweavers

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We were thinking about abandoned knitting mills and textile factories in our area, the women who worked at them, imagining the hardships of factory life over the last 100 years, and the cavernous spaces, now dusty, empty and full of insects.

This recording started with a sequence of piano chords. Stuart had removed the front panels of the piano to get the microphones in position, and we were struck by how the internal workings reminded us of a loom: vertical piano strings like warp threads, a horizontal row of felted hammers like yarn feeders, the creaking shift of the soft and sustain pedals like rhythmic machine movement. Stuart ended up using the creaks and knocking sounds of the pedals as the percussive rhythm track of the song.

While recording, we were also thinking about the relationships between insects, textiles and spaces - particularly moths. Silk moths cocoons are plunged into boiling water (tragically - with the moth still alive inside) to make silk thread for weaving. Moths eat clothes in forgotten wardrobes. Moths are often found tapping futilely against closed windows, or trapped in light fittings - on doomed flights of off-course celestial navigation.

Stuart made a synthesised algorithm replicating the sound of moth wings and added it over the top. We wanted to convey the anxious feeling of trapped insects. Repetition. Progression and stasis. Trapped at a desk yearning to be free.

lyrics

Winding thread around a spool,
Insects gather at the light above.

They think it’s the moon,
And they’ll die soon -
Fall into the loom,
Pheromones and tears,
Are woven,
Into shirts for you.

By day,
Machines will make the song
That lives within my limbs all day long:
Pull and turn,
Twist and thread,
Wrapping skeins around my neck.

A sawtooth roof -
To catch the northern light (not the arctic kind).
Insects watch, from above,
Always there.
Always there.

They think it’s the moon,
And they’ll die soon -
Fall into the loom,
Pheromones and tears,
Are woven,
Into shirts for you.

credits

from Loom, released October 28, 2011

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about

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The Orbweavers Melbourne, Australia

The Orbweavers are Marita Dyson & Stuart Flanagan, multidisciplinary artists working in song, performance and visual art. Their work responds to history, memory and place. They are interested in local waterways, industrial history and environmental change.

They have written and recorded 3 albums, co-produced by their greyhound companions, Fern (RIP 2018) & Susie, released through Mistletone. ... more

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