It looks like Sir. David Attenborough is dipping his toes in the world of music. The nature historian has just launched a new remix comp, the Songlines Remix Competition. Attenborough is challenging you to remix one of his original recordings into a dancefloor hit worth of gracing the dancefloors of Ibiza.
The material Sir. David Attenborough has provided is a 1965 field recording of a Balinese gender wayang. Attenborough encountered the performance —a form of Indonesian gamelan featuring two metallophones and a pair of drums— whilst filming Zoo Quest in 1956. He was attempting to track down a Komodo dragon in a small Indonesian village when he experienced the gamelan.
“The villagers will sit down while the leader of the gamelan orchestra will convey his composition, teaching them, one at a time how to play,” Sir. David explained of what the gamelan entails.
“They then play this concerted music with extraordinary precision and real zest. So it is haunting music that you hear every night – or you did in those days, in the villages of Bali.”
The competition closes at 6 pm, Monday, June 10th, 2019. To enter, just download the track ‘Gender Wayang’ and submit your piece de resistance via a private SoundCloud link.
Once you’ve submitted your track, a panel of judges comprised of songwriter Cerys Matthews, Mercury Prize-nominated artist Ghostpoet, electronic artist Hannah Peel, DJ Gilles Peterson and musician Matthew Herbert will slough the entries and nominate a shortlist six tracks for the public to vote on.
The winner will be announced on November 1, 2019, where they will receive an award at 2019’s Songlines Music Awards ceremony. For more information head here.
