Other Audio Obscura
Walking With Winter Behind Us [disquiet0268]

Disquiet 268 Walking Music.

I have actually been out walking today and each day this week. I have had some time off work from my 'normal' waged job so I have been down on the Thames Estuary (Kent and Essex sides) walking and making field recording for a film soundtrack I am working on. Today I walked under these huge electric pylons that you see in the picture (although those with a keen eye will notice the green on the trees - this picture was taken last year as I didn't have my camera with me today). But the sounds of the humming wires humming was very good to record.

I have mentioned in a few places this film project in the past, basically the film is a part documentary and part art film about the states of the Thames Estuary and the lax planning model that has dominated this area. For those who don't know it, the land here is diverse, there are decayed and abandoned former industrial sites, decommissioned power stations next to small pockets of bird sanctuaries, then near huge out of town 'shopping malls' and commuter belt housing estates, there is the huge London Port with its line of Chinese container ships unloading freight 24 hours a day. Today I was on the Essex side of the River, this is the area that gave us Depeche Mode and The Prodigy.

The Thames path is open pathway on both sides of the river and you are free to walk the slim path between river and industry. I have been lots recording at different times of the year to get the difference in seasons. I am building up a library of sounds and moods. The soundtrack will mostly be like this track, full of ambience, static humming and decayed drones. At times they sounds suggest to me the echos of a jaded rave music. You can't help but feel that the best days of this area are long gone but there is beauty to be found here in the Thames Estuary. But lets not be romantic, this is hard-Brexit heartland, disillusioned and left to pick at the carcass of the neighboring behemoth of London just 20 miles away.

This week the weather was a lot warmer and it felt like we are walking with winter behind us. I came back home after my days away made this track tonight. As I drove home I already decided to myself to use the sounds of the pylons from today's recordings, then I pull up at 6pm and read the email from the Junto.

The humming pylons is present but I played around with it, slowing it down so its sounds more real to me but less real then the reality of the actual recording. And then I played a slow haunted synth sound, I like this sound, its got a post-rave almost Burial like quality to it - I have made a lot of sound like this lately, there is a warmth to it I like (but why won't Hyperdub return my calls! Lol!!)
Then some reverb was added and I slowed the whole thing down some more, to me this is as lazy as I can be.

Disquiet Junto Project 0268: Walking Music
Take a stroll and describe it in sound, paying tribute to the late manga great Jiro Taniguchi.

Step 1: This week’s project pays tribute to Jiro Taniguchi, the great Japanese manga creator whose numerous works include an adaptation of a Natsume Sōseki novel, dark crime stories, and a widely celebrated and largely dialog-free volume titled The Walking Man. The Walking Man in particular is the inspiration for this week’s Junto project. Taniguchi died on February 11, 2017, at the age of 69.

Step 2: Take a leisurely stroll and record — whether through sound or observation, or both – what you see and experience.

Step 3: Create a short piece of music that reflects the route and experiences of your walk in Step 2.