What is Sproutbaurecord?

Sproutbaurecord is an interactive project documenting – through sound recordings and visual art – an summer live-in experiment in creating individual living utopias in an empty multi-storey building (due for demolition in autumn 2007) in Bremen, Germany. (See www.sproutau.de for further details of the overall project.)

Dan and Trish will be recording a virtual ‘7-inch single’ a day through the month of August, designing individual covers for every track, and releasing the daily package on this blog in ‘copy-left’ format (free for anyone to use, change and distribute). They will be working with and fostering the Sproutbau group dynamic, capturing residents’ experiences and moments in sonic and visual form, turning the everyday sounds of the building itself and artists at work – hammers, machines, conversations – into musical tracks. The transformed ‘field recordings’ will both document and reflect the experience of a temporary community forming and defining itself in relation to a specific physical space.

Sproutbaurecord will be produced in accordance with Dan and Trish’s version of a media utopia, encouraging and fostering a direct line between producer and listener where creative results are free for all to access, experience and alter according to their needs. They aim to showcase how musical and artistic production can actively promote sustainable living, particularly as a tool in building relations and a spirit of creative cooperation. Throughout the month their studio will be open to all inhabitants to record music to become part of that day’s ‘single’; a goal being to transform people's relationship with music from that of passive consumer to that of active creator.

Stay tuned for part one this weekend.