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The Experience, "One Amazing Day"
"One Amazing Day" is the result of field recording trips to Greenwich's gargantuan (physically and financially) Millennium Dome structure, the official celebratory site of the new millennium. Prior to its closing a few hours before 1/1/00, visitors could come and trudge through 14 interactive zones of futuristic themed exhibits and view a sort of three dimensional, mid-air ballet live show.
 
For 32 minutes you walk around with the V/Vm lads to take in the truly ambient sounds: large crowds of people (complete with crying babies, clicking cameras, chatting, bitching, heckling, etc.), kiosk recorded voices and music, loud speakers, event music and, ultimately, site construction. And, surprisingly, it seems that all the source sounds are unadulterated. Of the 14 seamlessly meshed tracks most are a minute or less but 2 at near 9 minutes apiece offer an extended document of specific events with cheesy narrations and/or contrived soundtracks. There's an obvious contempt here for the lottery funded, pre-packaged 'experience' offered by the New Millennium Experience Company and the British government and, of course, an inherent silliness to the whole project, but it also makes for interesting listening. I enjoy these sort of audio travelogues that take me to some place I've never been. Your mileage may vary.
There is an accompanying, yet to be completed, Experience web site as well: http://www.theexperience.8k.com/. This disc is just one of many from the V/Vm camp as of late. Check the Brainwashed site for the slew of other 7" and 12" vinyl and 3" and 5" cd releases.
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