Complicated Conversations

Portofino in the rain reimagined by John Downey. 

"This was a challenging field recording at first. Though the clip’s title is ‘in the rain,’ after listening carefully, waves are the water element, not rain, so I started to think about how people travel to the seaside or other locations and the burble of dense conversation can drown out the more interesting, environmental sounds.

I included some low-key arpeggiation, a sub wave from an O-Coast mono synth, and inserted my own mobile phone field recording of a bell buoy recorded in the early morning hours by the Long Island Sound shoreline in Old Saybrook, CT. The buoy was almost indistinguishable until lowering the noise floor and increasing the gain to make it stand out.

Listen with headphones at a low enough volume to pull your attention to the sonic textures rather than through monitors or as background noise. Notice one of the only intelligible word is around 3:37, a woman apparently ordering “cappuccino.” "