The story behind this podcast began last year, when I was planning a flight to the city of Guadalajara, Mexico to witness one of the most important music events of my lifetime: Björk’s only performance in Mexico, the verminous organizers named that festival Sonofilia in which also played Ratatat, MSTRKRFT, Jay Jay Johanson and Claude Von Stroke.

The odyssey to share with Björk, just a couple of hours was really an ordeal, at the end, through the poor organization and the fact that the “venue” was located on middle of nowhere, the episode culminated as one the most exciting and enjoyable experiences that I have ever had, Björk definitely enlightened the audience… but how is this event related with this podcast?, well, is difficult for me to confess that I’m a little nervous when I’m on a plane, so before I started my trip, I decided to make my flying experience truly comfortable by making a playlist for me in such a way that I would focus my attention entirely on the music instead than on the physics involved in the flight process.

The musical spectrum that I’ve selected here is relaxing but I think at the same time it’s bright and ethereal and, in some tracks, cacophony and abstraction prevails, in fact, I tried to design a concept through which the whole tracklist would reach, in some way, a complete journey of frequencies in order to let the listener enjoy those magnificent landscapes that the windows of an airplane may offer.

If you are going to fly somewhere this podcast could be your perfect companion on your flight, if you are scared to fly …and also if you’re not.

01 - Boards of Canada - Over The Horizon Radar
02 - Sidsel & Bugge - Out Here. In There
03 - Plaid - Ralome
04 - Yanokami - Owari No Kisetsu
05 - Rei Harakami - Come Here Go There
06 - Trentemøler - Snowflake
07 - Nils Petter Molvær - The Beginning (From The Film Edy)
08 - Hiroshi Watanabe - Sui-Sei
09 - Cornelius - Sleep Warm
10 - EKP - Leaving You Wondering

 

 Music for 30,000 feet: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Since such a long time I was planning to write a post about one of the most enigmatic voices of Latin America: Ymac Sumac. She was born on the 13th of September, 1922, in Peru. Apparently she was a direct descendant of Atahualpa, the the last emperor of the Incas. In her prolific singing career she had extensive achievements, including her performance at Carnegie Hall and other prominent efforts. I would suggest you to read her complete story or you can also watch this French documentary film and find out how her simple life was quickly turned into a worldwide phenomenon.

But this time we are going to focus on her uncommon voice, although she had no formal training, neither could she read musical notes, she was able to stagger her voice through 5 octaves, starting from a real low tone, almost like the tones on Barry White’s voice, up to high frecuency tones, just like a bird, in fact, in one interview she claimed that she learned to sing by trying to imitate the sounds made by birds, and certainly her voice, on some of her recordings, sounds like made by something other than a human, she was able of producing such tones, so clean and so deep, that today she continues being a mystical legend.

After listening to all the available Sumac recordings, I got very intrigued about those singers that exceed the standard of 80 Hz to 1100 Hz for men and women altogether that translated on a musical scale means from E2 to C6, this graphic will help you to identify the values between Hertz and a common piano scale, remember, one Hertz is equal to one vibration (one cycle) per second, therefhore for a regular singer it is really challenging to make so many vibrations per second.

According to the Guinness Book of Records these are the current records:

For Females:
Eight octaves, G2 to G10 (25,087 Hz), Georgia Brown, from Brazil. Picture this: how can she made a note so high producing an ultrasound, that she can’t even listen to? maybe she was trying to comunicate with dolphins or trying to see through complete darkness like a bat, anyway, you must watch this video of a TV presentation, some notes are so high and long that we could presume that there is a synthesizer sounding along.

For Males:
Greatest range: Six octaves, Tim Storms, from the USA, watch this video and discover why he is also an internet phenomenon.
and finally the highest male vocal note, a C#8 by Adam Lopez, from Australia.

Nowadays there are so many talented singers that they prefer singing for pleasure and to integrate their vocal spectrum on a fine made recording than competing for a silly world record, nevertheless we think that both options are just fantastic.