Matthew Herbert recently recorded an album whereby he sampled all aspects (and sounds) of a pig’s life – from its birth, life and subsequent butchery, cooking and consumption. Herbert was, however, prevented from recording the animal’s death by British law.

For the finale – or rather, the end of the pig’s 24-week life cycle – he held a One Pig Feast where he invited various chefs to cook a meal using every edible part of the animal – recording every sound. He wanted “every bite to count” and the elaborate banquet was intended to be a celebration of the pig’s life. In addition to this, Herbert commissioned several artists to create instruments from the pig by-products, including a pig skin drum by Stephen Calcutt and a pig blood organ by Henry Dagg, which acquires its pitch by forcing blood up through tuned reeds. Fascinating stuff.

He debuted his ambitious One Pig live project at London’s Royal Opera House on September 2nd. The live show saw Herbert recreate the album with a pig live on stage, on stage cookery, live audio-visual composition, various looping and electronics and a piano player playing samples again of the pig’s life, but manipulated into something more tuneful. Also, the introduction of a new instrument, the Sty-harp, which you can see in the clip below. Herbert himself, playing melody lines as well as sampling what everyone else was doing and, of course, some pork scratchin’.

Although animal rights group PETA condemned the work, Herbert has defended the album and live show saying, “It’s an insight into the presence of an animal so commonly underestimated, under-appreciated and unacknowledged in our society. For me, the music is the afterlife; the fact that we’re still talking about it,” says Herbert. “That pig would just have ended up as a meal but I believe that this album has imbued it with a much more physical and tangible end.”