Martha Skye Murphy & Maxwell Sterling Make Us a ‘Music For Airports’ Mixtape

Photography PETER EASON DANIELS

Seeing as how most of us are still traveling in place — Zooming through time zones without leaving our living rooms — more than two years into the pandemic, we can’t think of a better time than now to experience Distance on Ground. The byproduct of several bold improv session between singer-songwriter Martha Skye Murphy and composer / double bassist Maxwell Sterling, the “travel music” takes “move between urban and rural landscapes and are accompanied by a participatory website — distanceonground.com — where the listener can voyage in real time to and with the music in their chosen environment.”

Distance On Ground began as a conversation where words were replaced by sound while Maxwell and I shared our interests in articulations of place and space within a long form medium,” explains Murphy. “We started recording almost immediately when we met. An organic and fluid movement between our instruments arose, my voice answering Maxwell’s rich double bass and vice versa. The wordless trance lasted for over three hours. We spoke like this again a few weeks later, documenting it all for a further five hours.

She continues, “Distance On Ground is the collaged result of our geographical discussions through music. Each time I listen to ’86 km’ and ‘93.3 km’ they reveal themselves differently to me as another site, path or direction is exposed.”

“These recording sessions with Martha were such a tonic after isolation and lack of playing music live,” adds Sterling. “”There’s something deeply healing in the music that came from these sessions, something closer to a live performance for me.”

To put their project in perspective on a more holistic level, we asked the duo to compile their very own “Music For Airports” mixtape. Unlike the sedate lullabies of Brian Eno’s seminal ambient LP, it careens between plane crash preparations and deep listening at departure gates throughout the world, creating a high-concept look at cloudy skies and the human condition….

MARTHA SKYE MURPHY
Part One:
Preparations For a Plane Crash

GAVIN BRYARS – MORSE CODE
A calming and useful song in preparation for a plane crash

TOM WAITS – THE OCEAN
Instructions on drowning with his highness after said crash

VALIUM AGGELEIN – THE CLOUDS WILL DROP LADDERS
To accompany your sinking

ANDREW WEATHERS – LAST SUMMER (CEDAR FALLS, IA JULY 2010)
Staring into space you remember that the paranoia of a crash is psychological, and it will in fact be nice to float in the sky

MEREDITH MONK – EARTH SEEN FROM ABOVE
You can hide up there for a few hours

VINCENT GALLO – AND A COLORED SKY COLORED GREY
While the colours change

DANIEL BACHMAN – GREY (TAKE THREE)
As you move through rain

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS – CANTICLES OF THE HOLY WIND VIII: SKY WITH NAMELESS COLORS
And wind

BRIAN ENO & RICK HOLLAND – THE REAL
Until you land

ERNST REIJSEGER – LONGING FOR A FROZEN SKY
Wishing you could move through a frozen sky once more

MAXWELL STERLING
Part Two:
Departure Gate Moods

DAVID BOWIE – ART DECADE
Berlin

ALEX ZHANG HUNGTAI – DIVINE WEIGHT
Lisbon

JOHN T. GAST – WYGDN_TRYAGEN
Dubrovnik

BOARDS OF CANADA – ICED COOLY
Boston

BEN BERTRAND – MORTON AND GYORGY IN THE BATISTA MIST
Krakow

J DILLA – AIRWORKS
Los Angeles

KLEIN – THE HAUNTING OF GRACE
Dublin

AARON DILLOWAY & LUCRETIA DALT – YODELING SLITS
Parisr

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO – SOLARI
Milan

CHARLES MINGUS – ECLIPSE
New York