Photosynthesis by Wild Anima
Heard on the grapevine
A few years ago, in one of his arresting nature TV programmes, David Attenborough revealed that trees could communicate with each other via their roots and the vast network of fungi in which they were buried (known as a 'mycorrhizal network'). If a tree was in peril, perhaps under attack by an invasive species, it would emit a cry for help and the other trees would rally round in support! This resonated with me because I always talk to my house plants when tending to them but never realised it was a two-way conversation! Yes, plants can speak. Phytosynthesis, the new album from French-Greek sound artist Alex H. Alexopoulos, aka Wild Anima, is made using plant sounds.
I used a small device called PlantWave that transforms the bio electricity of plants into a MIDI signal. Most of the parts we hear on the Moogmother32 synthesizer throughout the album have been played by plants
Alex H. Alexopoulos
So these biological changes within plants can be detected, in a similar way to the mycorrhizal network. The Plantwave device taps into the life force of a natural organism and channels its energy into sound that humans can hear. So what do plants sound like? Well, from the Plantwave videos the sounds range from drones to sustained 'piano' notes to weird rhythmic noises, all of which can be heard on Phytosynthesis. However, the line between 'natural' sounds and those processed by Alexopoulos is ambiguous. At first there are familiar sounds, like the 'guitar notes' on Chlorophyll or the 'beating heart' pulsing irregularly on Chrysanthi, before realising they are sounds that have been captured, looped and processed direct from the vine. And, as on her previous album Supernatural, Alexopoulos uses vocals in a choral fashion, much like Julianna Barwick, so the underlying 'plant sounds' are often pushed lower into the mix, thereby cleverly reinforcing her original concept of a sensory exploration of the interconnectedness between humans and nature.
As an ambient album it's blissfully subdued. As a concept album it's quietly provocative.