Our tapes have nothing to do with you
Mar 23, 09:22 PM
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"My composition 'Our Tapes Have Nothing To Do With You' was inspired by AJ Born's field recording particularly for the fact that the recording documents the end of a Christmas Market in Germany. This fact, and the general atmosphere of the soundscape, reminded me of two really special and memorable weekend trips I'd taken with friends in 2018 and 2019 – to Belgium and Sweden respectively, during that lead-up period to Christmas. I felt weirdly inspired by the fact that a recording made by a person I have never met, of a place I have never been to, could evoke these specific personal memories of completely different places and different people. This thought heavily informed the lyrics that I wrote for 'Our Tapes Have Nothing To Do With You', and the way in which I distort and reshape portions of AJ's original recording throughout the song. Overall, I feel this all ties into Sonic Heritage's interest in the overlooked importance of sound – the way in which the preserved sound of a space and time can tell us so much about the original source, while also sparking off associations that can expand outwards to all kinds of different thoughts and memories and ideas.
"In terms of what I did practically to the original field recording in 'Our Tapes Have Nothing To Do With You', I ran it through my Arturia Microfreak synthesizer and also made use of Ableton Live's granular synthesis and sampling functionality to create new, fragmentary atmospheres out of the original recording. To begin with, these exist as ghostly background elements underneath the more traditional instrumentation and my voice; but they come to take over the music builds to its more abstract final stages. Finally, I also found particular snippets of the recording to use as metallic-sounding “snare” samples."
Luebeck Christmas market reimagined by Mute Branches.
———————
This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage
"In terms of what I did practically to the original field recording in 'Our Tapes Have Nothing To Do With You', I ran it through my Arturia Microfreak synthesizer and also made use of Ableton Live's granular synthesis and sampling functionality to create new, fragmentary atmospheres out of the original recording. To begin with, these exist as ghostly background elements underneath the more traditional instrumentation and my voice; but they come to take over the music builds to its more abstract final stages. Finally, I also found particular snippets of the recording to use as metallic-sounding “snare” samples."
Luebeck Christmas market reimagined by Mute Branches.
———————
This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage