Hymn to London Bridge 2010

Over the 24 hours of 2nd September, musician and producer Nick Franglen – one half of electronica legends Lemon Jelly and subterranean, ambient explorers Blacksand – created a piece of improvised music on London Bridge through collaboration with many thousands of pedestrians.

Starting and ending at midnight, tucked under the northern arches of the bridge itself, Franglen played theremin through a series of looping effects and delays to provide long, complex washes of sound output to speakers around him. The pedestrians crossing the bridge were unwitting players of the Soundbeam – a sensor device that cut the music when the beam is broken by movement.

Like an audio camera obscura, the flow of the music stutters and flickers with the shadow of people as they pass by the Soundbeam, relaying ghostly evidence of life and movement on the bridge above. Responding to the ebb and flow of foot traffic at either end of the day - be they the massed choir of commuters at Rush Hour, or the lone late-night reveler making their way home - Hymn to London Bridge charts a day in the life of London’s ancient arterial crossing.

A filmed loop of the performance created by cinematographer Bevis Bowden will be premiered in the Scoop at More London at 9pm on the evening of Saturday 11 September.

An article by Nick can be found on the Guardian website here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/aug/26/theremin-london-bridg

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