the swarm.

A queen usurped; a home deserted; a colony of individuals who act as one. The Swarm is a drama of epic proportions.

Taking inspiration from the vibrations with which bees communicate, and the patterns created by their social organisation - The Swarm is a choral-sound piece that takes us on an intimate journey as a colony of bees takes flight in search of a new home.
The Swarm was born out of a collaboration between composers and bee-keepers Heloise Tunstall-Behrens and Auclair, with Tunstall-Behrens on vocal composition, and Auclair on sound design.

“From years of working with bees, we became more and more curious about their sound world. The physical sensation of being surrounded by their collective hum is really special, switching between modes of listening to the group and then to individuals. This got us thinking about different forms of polyphony where individual melodies are layered or intersect to create a sound that is bigger than the sum of its parts.” Heloise Tunstall-Behrens & Auclair, composers of The Swarm
The Swarm began life as a series of audio-visual performances at the Brunel Museum London, VAULT Festival and Liverpool's Car Park Space. The piece has since evolved into a multi-sensory experience, 360 audio film and full length recording out now on Amorphous Sounds.
Fans of Roomful of Teeth, Meredith Monk, and Steve Reich take note. These choral movements take us on a journey of intricate polyphonic explosions and tightly woven all-embracing harmonies, amidst a bed of deep electronics and field-recordings.

    “We recorded hours of activity inside the hive. Hearing actual piping and quacking - the calls made by newly emerged virgin queens - for the first time was amazing. Off the back of the hive recordings we made, we did lots of research into the ways bees use sound and patterns - from identifying the key frequencies of their buzzing, to the mathematics inherent in honeycomb structures. We took our findings and figured out ways of translating it into the ‘human’ realm, working out all kinds of interesting musical parallels with polyphonic singing, hocketing and euclidean rhythms.”
    - Heloise Tunstall-Behrens & Auclair, composers of The Swarm

The piece is performed by an all-female choir, representing the core of a honeybee colony, and is a metaphor for the journey towards collective identity. The swarm is a ritual of social cohesion - the colony must unify in order to survive.
“We’re both part of the all-female group Deep Throat Choir, which is where we met actually, so it made sense to start there. Honey bee colonies are primarily made up of female worker bees, and Ttanslating their ‘voices’ felt like a direct way of empathising and connecting with them.” Heloise Tunstall-Behrens & Auclair, composers of The Swarm
Drunk with honey, and woozily awakening from slumber, opener Swarming is a gentle accumulation of nonsense-syllables that soothe like the sweet musings of a lullaby.
Polyrhythmic Cluster may sound at first like a cacophony, but is on closer inspection a precision of Euclidean rhythms, staggered and rotating at varying intervals. It is reminiscent of Terry Reilly’s minimalist approach, or the Baka singing traditions from which Tunstall-Behrens and Auclair have taken inspiration.

Dance Off is the album’s climactic point, as the music takes us on a journey from discovery to cohesion, culminating in the single unanimous declaration of “hollow tree!”.
Finally, Honeycomb, with words adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck’s “Spirit of the Hive”, is an anthem for the unity of the colony in their new queendom: “Daughters, sisters, this is only the beginning .... We have a new inverted city, hanging down from the sky. The bones and flesh of our new body, Together.”

Written by: Heloise Tunstall-Behrens and Auclair

Producer/s: Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, Auclair and Dan Blackett

Mix engineer: Dan Blackett

Mastering: Will Worsley at Coda to Coda

Performed by: Sarah Anderson, Tanya Auclair, Nouria Bah, Luisa Gerstein, Sarah Parkes, Natalie Pela, Rosa Slade, Liv Stones, Heloise Tunstall-Behrens

Samples:
Thanks to the following for contributing audio to Solar - Thomas Ashcraft (Heliotown Observatory); SOHO/MDI (ESA & NASA); Peter Messmer; Alex Kosovichev; Mark Scott.

Artwork: Gabriel Vyvyan

Amorphous Sounds