Stereogum: You also have Shabaka Hutchings playing flute on “Thin Places.” You specifically had him play an instrument tuned to 432 Hz instead of the standard 440 Hz. I understand the 432 Hz thing has some kind of scientific, biological significance. I saw you were in a Rolling Stone article about it. Can you explain it to me?
O’BRIEN: I've been on a deep dive with 432 for a while now. Probably about 2014 I started on it. It starts, like a lot of good things, at Glastonbury Festival. I had a conversation there in midsummer 2014 with a fellow musician. And she said, “Have you heard about the Solfeggio scale?” “No, tell me more.” And she said, “It's the sort of the ancient scale that a lot of chants and a lot of early Middle Ages music was written in. It's sacred, you know, it wasn't just that music was pleasant to the ear. It had a healing, uplifting, very powerful aspect to it that worked on a spiritual and cellular level.
O’BRIEN: I've been on a deep dive with 432 for a while now. Probably about 2014 I started on it. It starts, like a lot of good things, at Glastonbury Festival. I had a conversation there in midsummer 2014 with a fellow musician. And she said, “Have you heard about the Solfeggio scale?” “No, tell me more.” And she said, “It's the sort of the ancient scale that a lot of chants and a lot of early Middle Ages music was written in. It's sacred, you know, it wasn't just that music was pleasant to the ear. It had a healing, uplifting, very powerful aspect to it that worked on a spiritual and cellular level.
Ed: “I met Tõnu [Kõrvits] in Estonia over dinner,” recalls O’Brien. “He said, ‘If you ever want any string arrangements, please contact me.’ Five weeks later he’d done an incredible arrangement with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra for the title track and Sweet Spot.
“With Shabaka [Hutchings], I was chatting with him at Glastonbury and I said, ‘Do you fancy coming in?’ And he came by three or four months later, laid some flutes down on Thin Places, and it was beautiful.”
“With Shabaka [Hutchings], I was chatting with him at Glastonbury and I said, ‘Do you fancy coming in?’ And he came by three or four months later, laid some flutes down on Thin Places, and it was beautiful.”