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his is all in a day’s work as part of his trio The Sound Approach (Constantine, Manus Robb and Arnoud Van den Berg), which is responsible for all the bird songs and ambient sounds on the albums. The group have been “trying to record all the bird sounds of the West- ern Palearctic”, an area stretching from Scandinavia through Europe, the Middle East and North Africa or as the internet reveals… “From the Urals to the Azores, from Iceland to Iraq, from Spitzbergen through the Sahara.”
Simon, a keen birdwatcher since childhood and deeply inspired by the sounds they make says: “It was incredible for me to meet Mark. If he took that much care and integrity towards bird song, I thought it’d be alright with the music because when peo- ple are into traditional music it’s a can of worms to be honest.” He pauses. “Funnily enough with the Imagined Village, we had a bird quiz in the middle of our show. We showed some footage of some birds I’d taken, then the next shot was of a Short-toed Lark!” They both fall about laughing.
“It’s an in-joke,” he explains.
“Bird song,” says Emmerson, “was definitely a starting point” for this project. “Myself and Richard Evans, who I composed with, would spend hours listening to the bird songs and thinking how it would work in a spa.”
Constantine adds that he was keen to create an English spa and thought about ‘Englishness’ and how to resonate with that. He wanted the music to create a sense of place: “I’d been getting a little bit up myself recording church bells and song thrushes and things, trying to record a robin on Hardy’s grave. I like that sense of place and getting the acoustics right.” But it was only as they were initially “exploring back and forth” what the music should be, that the idea of using the recordings was suggested. “I was delighted to be working with Simon,” he says, “the fact that he used my bird songs was really nice.”
They give the music not just a sense of place but a sense of time too. From the jaunty chirping of an early bird to the haunting calls of the owl and nightjar to the burst of a dawn chorus on Synaesthesia, you’re given the sense of being on a more than 24- hour journey to the heart of the English countryside. A product of Constantine’s deeply-rooted holistic approach, everything about this project is perfectly integrated, from the look of the spa to the organic ingredients in both the products used and the tea you’re given to drink. So it’s not surprising that the musical journey acts as a metaphor for the personal transformation that’s the intention behind the treatments.
Stella Washburn aside, fRoots is not a regular habitué of spas. However it is in a position to confirm – having once been so wound up in a supposedly up-market place by new age idiocy tin- nily emitting from a dodgy portable CD player, that the masseuse turned it off and marked the time from the fRoots mobile – that the Lush treatments are in a league of their own.
Synaesthesia is the signature treatment, so called because it blends the senses using aromatherapy, colour, touch, taste and the tailor-made sound. It’s intended to have a psychological and physi- ological impact beyond just feeling relaxed. The idea is that it pro- vides the opportunity for a gentle emotional catharsis.
Constantine is of the opinion, supported now in research biol- ogy and espoused by luminary scientists such as Rupert Sheldrake, that the body stores memory on a cellular level, anywhere in the body, not just in the brain. These memories have a bio-magnetic charge which impacts on the cells. Constantine reckons that mas- sage can help release this charge, with correlating psychological and physiological benefits.
To up the ante on the psychological level, he worked closely with Lady Helen Kennedy, a highly respected behavioural thera- pist, on designing the treatment, which uses words and scents to promote a desired outcome chosen by the client. The music which Emmerson composed, also working closely with the team and par- ticularly with the masseurs, reinforces this. It’s a wonderfully rewarding experience and the thoughtfulness behind it all stands out. You even get a party bag with products specific to your treat- ment to take home. Top.
At the end of the Synaesthesia treatment you hear the The
Imagined Village and their wistful take on Scarborough Fair. The words come as some surprise after the bird songs and orchestral sounds of the Nightjar Orchestra, Emmerson’s collective for the project, but in fact they act as a gentle transition back into the real world at the end of your other-worldly English journey.
Music is a significant part of the proceedings. Some of the products are in fact inspired by it and Constantine is well aware of its healing impact (it too affects the body on a cellular level), but part of the inspiration for releasing the CD/DVDs, was so that you can re-live the experience later.
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