Sacred Injections: a playlist by Baldruin

Hortobágyi studied musicology and Indology and also worked as an organ builder in Hungary. He is known for combining instruments and musical structures from the past and future, the East and the West, in order to create a unique soundworld.

This piece opens with a kind of extra-terrestrial sermon before the driving, grooving baroque melody begins, which is supported by tribal-like percussion. In between, the mass bells of the altar boy aliens ring as a signal to swap partners in the Martian church dance. When the priest joins in with his singing at the end, there is no stopping the ecstatically cheering churchgoers.

The approach of including traditional and futuristic elements from different cultures in his music is fascinating and surely a great inspiration for the sound of Baldruin.

The church organ is connected to a computer using a newly developed system, which makes it possible to control its keyboards and tone colours digitally. This enables Denuc to create midi-compositions programmed in music software, which are then played back by a real organ. Rhythmic tracks inspired by minimalism unfold an extraordinary pull through opulent organ sounds.

Witnessing this piece live in a overcrowded Dutch church last year was a fascinating and transcendental experience.

In the 1960s, Monk began to understand her voice as the heart of her artistic expression and developed her very own experimental choral technique. The ethereal, beautiful sound of classical choral music is expanded and transformed through babbling, whispering and shouting, capturing an unadorned and versatile expression of primal emotions. This long track from the album of the same name might be the best example of her versatile, creative vocal experiments, in which a wide range of emotions are depicted.

Is an inevitable end of the world imminent? Has God abandoned us? Thick wafts of mist obscure the view, an unknown horizon opens up. Melancholy organs are accompanied by lamentations and unfortunately do not announce tidings of joy: sorry, but the world is doomed.

Remain patient, because only after ten minutes the sacred substance of the injection begins to take effect and unfolds its full power.

The singing of a choirboy is cut up here and given a second life through unusual new connections. Dadaist texts are created through a collage-like composition of the sung lyrics. Superimpositions and distortions of the vocal recordings intensify the peculiar effect. In between, electronic bubbling and hissing can be heard again and again – another factor that contributes to making the piece one of the strangest and boldest electronic avant-garde compositions.

When I return to this piece every few years, it still sounds new and fresh to me and loses none of its fascinating charm rooted in the different and strange.

Lieven Martens follows on from the vision of the medieval composer Johannes Ockeghem, who had intended the 36-voice canon (if rumours are to be believed) for many more singers. However, as it seemed impossible at the time to bring a large, excessive number of singers together in one place, he had to limit himself in his choice of performers.

The musician increases the number of singers many times digitally (at certain points 198) and thus creates a choral polyphony, turning the singing into an angelic shifting choir with overlapping harmonics and undulating rhythms. So Ockeghem’s dream has come true in a virtual reality.

The range of noises that the sound sculpture artist Bertoia elicits from his metal rod instruments get under your skin. Unique drone surfaces are created here through sensitive processing of sound forms.

The resounding metal rods make me think of the lamentations of wandering, restless souls of deceased monks in a crumbling crypt beneath a monastery.

In this track the use of instruments and vocals creates a connection to sacred music, whereby the musical style can perhaps best be described as a unique combination of medieval compositions, psychedelic music and 20th century choral experiments. The lyrics tell surreal stories, in this song it’s about a queen travelling in a carriage with glass horses in front of her, and an ominous encounter. A fascinating mixture of genres that casts a spell over the listener.

While the cleaners went about their work, O’Dwyer was allowed to play the organ at St Mark’s Church, Islington. The combination of the free-flowing organ sounds and the ambient noises is what makes these improvisations so appealing. Transcendental sounds and everyday noises form a wonderful combination.

In this track, you not only hear the busy cleaning staff going about their work with the hoover, but also the voice of a child, who is described in the title as the little lord of misrule, having fun in the sacred corridors of the church.

Certainly known to most readers and often discussed, but the soundtrack of the German cult band to Werner Herzog’s classic film should not be missing here. The enraptured, floating sounds of the ‘choir organ’ are simultaneously dark and menacing as well as angelic and uplifting. A mystical and spiritual acoustic journey that is particularly memorable in combination with the film footage. The opening sequence shows how Spanish conquistadors overcome an inhospitable, merciless mountain range in the Amazon jungle on an expedition that was doomed to failure from the outset (the search for El Dorado, the legendary gold land of the Incas). A gripping metaphorical depiction of the battle between man and nature.