A collaboration with artist Letta Stohryn for an installation in Valetta, which began during my time living in Malta.
I had been working on my field recording techniques for a few years and was gradually working myself back into the practice of seriously sculpting raw material again. Working with more recognisable or just less processed sounds made my work a lot more collage-like, which worked well together with Letta’s installation work.
The work itself goes through a few different movements, or levels, if you follow the insinuation of video game character, weaving together a loose narrative of found impulses.
no experimental software was used to create any of the sounds, except the descending clusters in the second movement, which are hand drawn spectral edits of brass instruments. Most of the other sounds are manual playback speed manipulation, automations of different standard parameters, and some interesting ducking and gating that I’m very happy with.
The creation of this piece came at a time when I began prioritizing mixing and mastering sound art, which contrasted the experience and expertise I’d built while making conventional music.
Basti Aker 