Shantytown Music Box

If you’ve never heard the sound of clouds you’ve never been to the “Shantytown Music Box” in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood. A group of artists led by curator Delany Martin has created a whimsical village of fully interactive musical buildings on a vacant lot on Piety Street.

Walking through the painted wooden gates into the courtyard is like walking into a foreign land—each miniature house has its own multitude of sounds, ranging from jangling bells and antique bottles to a high-tech “Sunset Drone.” The Drone was constructed by New Orleans artist Quintron and creates sounds using a weather vane and a speaker. It is reactive to weather patterns, cloud cover, rain and the setting sun.

The village also features a small wooden cottage, built of corrugated metal and old window frames, that has piano key-like floor boards that creak with each step; an outhouse-size structure built of windows with a stethoscope hanging from the ceiling that amplifies the players’ heartbeat when they step inside; and a house with a giant bell-shaped wire dress, covered in lace, that you can stand inside and shake for a cacophonous chorus of hundreds of antique bells and miniature glass bottles.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Diane Danthony sat on the amped rocking chair that hangs from the biggest structure on the property, the River House, and plucked at the old guitar strings on either side of her as each of the chair’s creaky movements played through the radio mounted to the wall on her right. It was her first time visiting and she’s not a musician, but she said the experience was moving. “It’s odd, it’s captivating and it does something that ordinary music just doesn’t.”

Another of the project’s curators, Theo Eliezer, described the project as a “love letter to New Orleans,” honoring a historic city in which part of the daily experience is being “constantly surrounded by odd noises; creaks and clatters and groans, that just kind of exist alongside of us.”

The shantytown is a prototype for a more permanent installation to be designed by the Brooklyn-based artist Swoon, who is known for her intricate cutout paper wall murals and handmade sculptural boats that have floated on the Hudson River, the Mississippi and the Adriatic Sea. Martin said the property used to be home to an 1800s Creole cottage, the remnants of which now make up much of the sculpture park. The property is owned by Jay Pennington, Martin’s co-director of the arts organization New Orleans Airlift, who initially bought it when the Creole cottage still stood and who plans to eventually house the organization there.

The Music Box has hosted several concerts in recent months featuring well-known musicians. For a show in November saxophonist Dickie Landry, of Lafayette, played the computerized “gamelan,” which is based on an Indonesian xylophone ensemble. He said the instrument was unlike anything he’s played before and noted, “Life is a challenge; music is a challenge. If it’s not challenging, I’m bored.”

Not only were the instruments unusual, but the event also brought together a diverse group of performers, including hip hop producer Mannie Fresh and New Orleans musician James Singleton. Landry said it’s rare for musicians from such different genres to play together and there’s something about the uninhibited, undefined nature of the experimental instruments that unifies them.

But the Music Box won’t be there for long. The organizers plan to tear the whole thing down to start construction of Dithyrambalina—an intricate, full-scale, up-to-code house constructed of salvaged materials, which will be open to the public for three months after its completion. After that, it will permanently house New Orleans Airlift.

Martin said the design is a nod to traditional New Orleans architecture and the impetus behind the project is to recognize the city’s musical history while giving new life to discarded materials and bringing the community together. She said the idea for the project came naturally. When she describes “a musical house that you can play” to people, she said, they seem to easily grasp it. It’s “like when you suddenly have a really good idea or wonder how someone hasn’t thought of that before,” she added.

The intermediate Music Box project, however, has proven to be a destination of its own. It’s been successful in the few months it’s been open and Martin said the artists have received overwhelming community support—raising twice their goal on the fundraising website Kickstarter.com and selling out all of their shows.

Volunteer Michael Glenboski said what he loves about the Music Box is how it draws the community together. Neighborhood kids regularly come in and explore the sculptures, often discovering new sounds that the curators themselves didn’t even know were possible. Martin said she thinks people are enchanted by the idea of a musical house. “I think they can quite easily understand the ways in which a house can make noise, whether it’s the creaking floorboards or a staircase. I asked some kids who came through here what their houses sound like and one of them said ‘like my mom blow-drying her hair!’”

Martin said the curators are closing the house down for the New Year and deciding where to go from there, although some spring encores may be in the works. Judging by the popularity of this magical destination, you may want to keep ears and eyes on the Bywater for whatever comes next.

Details. Details. Details.

To follow the developments and potential visiting hours, visit dithyrambalina.com.

Find more pictures at countryroadsmag.com

To hear what the Shantytown Music Box sounds like, visit wrkf.org or tune in to 89.3 for a radio segment on this project at 6:35 a.m., 8:35 a.m. or 4:44 p.m. on January 6.