London and Tokyo-based arts and research practice MSCTY is the leading global agency for music and architecture established in 2010. "We believe that the things we hear are as important as those we see".
MSCTY gives a stage to urban environments through sound artists who interpret spatial qualities and architecture into their language of music. Strong connections with the Estonian music scene and a love for the fast-developing, yet raw and historically rich cityscape have led to a special incarnation of the project - MSCTY x Tallinn.
Back in late 2019, as part of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, we produced a series of bespoke musical tracks by various Tallinn-based musicians, illuminating the port city's historical structures alongside cutting-edge urban developments and architectural ambitions. The 7 tracks featured were from some of our favorite Estonian recording artists, who represented the thriving and diverse music scene of Tallinn. Each created a new track inspired by areas in the north of the city – one of its most rapidly developing areas. Musicians Mart Avi, Maarja Nuut, Aivar Tõnso, Tuulikki Bartosik, Argo Vals, Taavi Tulev, Sander Mölder, and architect/musician Rebecca Kontus took part in the program and also a live tour and playback event attended by a large and enthusiastic audience who traveled to each location to enjoy an inspiring mix of site-specific sound created for each location.
The culmination for this year is in September during Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022. With an extended program, the MSCTY track producers will explain their way of interpretation on a new tour, visiting each of the places together and listening to the music created at each location. Whether a local person familiar with the neighborhood or someone from out of town to whom the area is totally new, it is a perfectly romantic way of getting to know the city - to derive from one place to another outdoors and listening to each of the spaces and places.
The approach of every artist varied, with all of them employing different methods to capture the essence of space for each of their compositions. This included recording the existing sounds from rooms, utilizing the buildings’ spatial qualities, such as echoes that reflect the form, giving a hint of the buildings’ history with some well-describing sounds, or interpreting their personal experience. Every musician we worked with put their whole heart into their tracks. Accordionist, performer, and songwriter, Tuulikki Bartosik, wrote a wonderful back story to hers, which shows the deep-rooted connections and memories that went into each of the MSCTY x Tallinn songs:
My piece "Last one standing" is dedicated to the last remaining trees on Kopli Peninsula and to all the souls in Kalamaja and Kopli Cemetery parks. The trees tell the story of the people lying under their roots. I think that as long as there is one last tree standing, there is still hope for mankind to survive.
I would like people to stop and listen to my piece, feel the history merging into the modern city life and vice versa through my sounds. Which kind of emotions do those sounds awaken? Do people feel something or do they just rush on? Do they hear the wind in the trees and children playing in the background, cars passing and people talking to my music or do they just hear their own thoughts in their heads?
Argo Vals took his inspiration for his track from The Noblessner Tower (Tööstuse 46, Tallinn), which was built in 1914 and originally served the purpose of a water tower. The building has had many uses since then and has been the victim, and occasional success, of economic situations in the city. Sadly today the building is largely empty, and it is these emotions that Argo drew from when composing his piece.
Electronic musician Aivar Tõnso’s ‘Põhjala Factory’ created a track about the famous old rubber factory in Kopli. It's a hypnotic piece that tells the story of the building’s change from the factory to its use today as a creative hub, whilst Sander Mölder’s ‘Arsenal’ sound sources look back to the space as a former Russian army complex. The tinkling effects, according to Mölder, are inspired by “the sonic beauty of a cinematic scene of hundreds of bullet casings falling and crystallizing over time”.
Richard Foster, in an essay about the project commissioned by MSCTY, puts it like this: Tallinn is a city of riddles. One of half-erased signs, memories in people’s heads, and histories that slowly disappear into the ground or become a layer of grimy residue on a building’s facade. Many aspects of the city do feel, initially, at a remove or happy in operating out of sight: if not of another world, certainly of another way of thinking.
In many ways this is key to the MSCTY x Tallinn project as we seek to bring new experiences to this wonderful city, fusing memories of the place, histories, and journeys with new soundtracks which we hope will go on to become part of the fabric of the place itself….
MSCTY Tallinn tour is part of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022 and the UNESCO City of Music program. MSCTY Tallinn funders and partners are Estonian Cultural Endowment, Tallinn City, EfTEN Capital, Noblessner, Põhjala Factory, Arsenal, Hepsor, Kadriorg park, and Architecture Centre of Estonia.
