With Gareth and Jose’s previous lectures in mind I began to experiment with Musique concrete techniques in order to build a soundscape in line with the themes of the project. For the first instrument I used a multitude of drone like string samples layered with vocals I had recorded.
I wanted to make the piece feel intimate, in reflection to the bar scene in The Shining. To do this I used a lot of whisper like vocal recordings, layering them with long, sustained strings. To create the futuristic element, I created an ‘electricity’ sounding synth patch. I then used a sample of waves washing up on a beach, I used this to create atmosphere and space within the track, I wanted to add more earthly tones to ground the piece rather than having it hyper-futuristic sounding.
I wanted to create a short repeating musical phrase to make the piece more meditative or hypnotic. I felt like this was an appropriate thing to do considering the main themes of reflection and futurism.
I feel like I was able to create a rich ambient piece which reflected the themes we wanted to convey as well as relate to my collaborator’s pieces. I felt the drone like mixture of the strings, my voice and the electricity created a soundscape both longing and mournful though this I feel I was able to achieve my goal in creating a lament for the past using the future.