working as a group
Overall, I would say that working with the group has been quite successful. Going into this project I wanted to try and pursue a different sound than what I am used to. I already found Kit, Tal and Mouses work intriguing and wanted to know what it would be like to work and bounce ideas around with them. We had lots of great discussions in class about the topics and themes we would like to explore, including folk lore, spring equinox, changing seasons linking to changing frequencies and the act of broadcasting itself. These conversations have proved very useful as they led us to a great concept that we could draw lots of inspiration from. Mouse has been a great group leader and she has been very organised, creating google docs for us to share ideas and other elements we had recorded.
To be quite frank, I have been busy working on other, more time restrictive projects throughout this unit and therefore have been unable to give this project the level of attention and time that I would have liked to. However, I am happy with the work that I have produced, it compliments the pieces that the others in the group have made. The work as a whole sounds unified, showing that we all had similar visions of where we wanted the project to go. I think this is because of the strong concept we created for ourselves to fall back on if we were ever unsure where to take our pieces.
individual piece
As I have mentioned in some blog posts, my production process has changed a lot in recent months. Previously, I was using digital synths and DAWs on my laptop, which I felt quite restrictive. I criticised every note and its placement, as it could be edited at any moment, nothing was permanent. Now that I use more analogue equipment, I take a much more relaxed approach. I feel a sense of freedom when recording and allow for my mind and work to ebb and flow, adding up to, what I think to be a healthier practice. I prefer the tactile, physical nature of hardware and it adds a deeper level of connection to my works. The more improvisational style I have found works well in this context as it parallels the unexpected nature of tuning through the radio frequencies.
This piece was made with my Arturia Minibrute 2 running through a chain that included looper, pitch shift, delay, reverb and EQ pedals. I started off making an extended version using the whole text to get the overarching tone right, then I shortened the piece down to fit into the four minute slot that we each had on the broadcast. A field recording of a blustering wind is played at the beginning, paired with a droning synthesiser loop as to communicate the cold isolation that comes with the winter months. I made the decision to focus more on textural and harmonic elements in this piece rather than focusing on melody, as I thought that it would help to convey the barrenness of winter. As the drone grows and the winds die down, footsteps can be heard, signifying the resilience of human life. This leads us into bird songs that were captured by mouse are which suggest the beginning of spring.
I wanted to have the track slowly build throughout, similar to the feeling of wanting winter to come to an end. but I had no intention of having a release for this building tension because in nature the movements are subtle and often times go unnoticed, which is what I wanted to reflect in my work. The analogue textures are heightened when heard back through the radio. The transmission adds a layer of distortion which I think help to gel the vocal and instrumental tracks.
set up/ themes
The set up for recording involved three laptops and two radios. One laptop was transmitting our instrumental work, the second transmitting the text. The third radio was transmitting additional sound effects onto a different frequency that was tuned to throughout the piece, bringing in a layer of interference and other broadcasts. The two radios were then recorded with a H5 to create the final piece. The radios were placed in a way that gave a full panned stereo effect. This method was used to utilise the unique properties of radio to their full capability. Having transmission as a large part of the piece, it allowed us to welcome interference and other broadcasts.
Although I am very pleased with our work, I definitely would have liked to utilise the tuning if radio more frequently than we did, but we can lean into this idea more if we have the chance to performance live for radio.