Jacob Kirkegaard

Format

Exclusive deluxe release of 4 LP box set in 180g black vinyl. Packaged in archival handmade box, bound in linen and embossed, including five unique prints on Tyvek paper. Signed and numbered limited edition of 250.

A sound work on four significant environments for the immediate post-mortem.

Opus Mors is four listening spaces for one of the existential and natural aspects of being alive, which is death. The project portrays four sound environments that the human body commonly will be surrounded by or exposed to in the immediate post mortem: a morgue, an autopsy, a cremation and the decomposition - events that no one will ever get to sense on their own bodies because of the very fact of death. The work is an immersive, intimate and powerfully detailed sonic meditation into these four significant death spaces.

OPUS MORS consists of four unique works, each on its own vinyl LP, composed from sound recordings from the following four significant environments:

O P U S M O R T U R A R I U M

Two ambient recordings made inside two morgues listens within the slow and deep tones from the facilities that keep the corpses cold.

O P U S A U T O P S I A

Detailed and precise near-field sound recordings of a full autopsy starting with opening the corpse, following the removal and slicing and cutting open all the organs and brain, to finally returning all the organs, closing and washing the corpse. This work comes with a detailed 'track list' which thereby provides sonic insight into the timbre of the unique human organs.

O P U S C R E M A T I O

Coffin being rolled into the oven, the oven's different burning stages, the removal and relocation of the ashes to the ash cooler and then to the bone crusher. Finally, the ashes being poured into the urn. Vibration sensors placed on the surfaces of the oven reveals the sound environment of the oven as if heard from the inside.

O P U S P U T E S C O

Sound recordings made at a forensic study facility where donated corpses are placed in an enclosed nature area to decompose while being studied. This work was made from ear-field sound recordings of decomposing corpses recorded with measurement microphones placed only 1 cm above- as well as with vibration sensors placed inside the corpses.

Recordings of 2 autopsies and 2 morgues were made possible with permission from professor in forensic medicine at the University of Southern Denmark Peter Mygind Leth, deputy chief forensic pathologist Peter Thiis Knudsen and forensic technicians Tonny Hansen and Jan Leth.

2 cremations were made with permission from crematory operators Michael Hansen and Ole Pedersen at Odense Crematorium, Denmark.

2 decomposing bodies were made possible with permission from Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, USA.

This album was realised with support from the Danish Arts Council.

Graphic production by Eks-Skolens Grafisk Design & Tryk.

Recorded and composed by Jacob Kirkegaard © 2019

Release notes

Exclusive deluxe release of 4 LP box set in 180g black vinyl. Packaged in archival handmade box, bound in linen and embossed, including five unique prints on Tyvek paper. Signed and numbered limited edition of 250. A sound work on four significant environments for the immediate post-mortem. Opus Mors is four listening spaces for one of the existential and natural aspects of being alive, which is death. The project portrays four sound environments that the human body commonly will be…