The Wanderer and his Shadow

Pascal Savy reimagines his recording of insects from Thailand using Oblique Strategies cards:

The second card ‘Cascade’ inspired the whole track in a sense that I generated all sounds using a synthesis technique called ‘granular synthesis’. On a very basic level, this technique uses tiny sound grains from an existing recording which are re­played like a cascade of sound drops. In the process one can create completely new textures from only one sound. So I used parts of the original recording which gave interesting new textures to work with and arrange as a skeleton of track.

I used the first card ‘Use an unacceptable color’ as a way to guide the creative process while I worked on the arrangement of the track. I basically thought that using a lot of distortion was a bit contrary to the idea of capturing pure and raw field recordings. I had tried to record those insects as cleanly as possible and when I made the reimagined track I found that distortion, used as a wrong colour, was taking the recording to a completely new space which guided me to complete the track."