I have long been a fan of Charlie White's photography (I first learned about him when I saw Understanding Joshua, which knocked my socks off). His new project is called Music for Sleeping Children.
Music for Sleeping Children is an experimental collaboration between internationally recognized visual artist Charlie White and Mercury-nominated musician and producer Boom Bip (also known as Bryan Hollon). The project stems from White's investigations of the representation of American adolescence, and was born from a relationship forged between White and Hollon in 2009 when they collaborated on "We Like to Shop," a simple clap-along song from White's experimental cartoon, OMG BFF LOL that Hollon converted into a throbbing club track for the work's US premier at the Aldrich Museum. From there, White and Hollon set out to realize a far more ambitious project conceived by White as the marriage of in-depth teen interviews, discussions, and studio projects with pop, electronica, hip hop and experimental composition. Working in tandem, White and Hollon fashioned the concept of each track around the original studio recordings of teen girls ranging in age from 12 to 16. From eager enthusiasms, to exuberant chants, to adolescent melancholia, Music for Sleeping Children underscores the complex tensions resonant in the teen voices while transforming each girl into a popular music form of her own. Magical, uncomfortable, and original, Music for Sleeping Children is an artwork, an archive, and an album.
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