While the term “climate” prompted me think of the weather, I was reluctant to take that direction.
“Climate” reminded me of Junto 106, where the rise and fall of the temperature over 24 hours became a graphic score. Aside from thinking the cool change that arrived around the time of Marc’s email could be signified with a drop in rhythm or pitch, I didn’t have too many ideas.
In the end I used both a drop in rhythm and pitch in my track but, while googling a definition of “climate” I’d been struck by the term “mileu” and it’d resonated with my reflection on the year that has passed.
The Christmas party at work on Thursday prompted me to think about my first year working in a museum and also I’d been playing on an old organ that I wanted to incorporate. So I started looking at the videos I’ve shot on the iPhone that came with my job and thinking how to make a song from a variety of animal and industrial noises.
Like @saintcloud observed, cicadas are a feature of the Australian soundscape. Their pitch rises and falls with the temperature. This week I read they can be as loud as 120 decibels. And I heard them for the first time this week too, although it was a lower pitch than the recording I have on my phone.
The video shows where many of the sounds originate. The emu makes a very deep gulping sound that might not be easy to identify and I don’t know the species of the other bird. The sound of a steam whistle is heard during the shot of the horses, while the cicadas were among the white cypress pines. You also see and hear the steam machinery shed.
While remixing landscapes has been a part of my music for a while, it was good to have musical instruments to work with in this track. You can hear horns, high hat and kick drum from a recording of Griffith’s town band, and I guess the cowbells can be considered here too. There’s also a bell from an old sulky, as well as my son operating a water pump.
The cicadas are gated in places to sound like a high hat and one of the blacksmithing loops is repitched for a similar effect. Most of the loops have been EQ’d to remove lower frequencies, except the kick drum is only low frequencies. The loops have also been gated.
This is the first time I’ve remixed recordings made on an iPhone and the higher frequencies started to become a problem when I added compression. My ears are still ringing but a bit of de-essing took care of them in the end.
You can see more of the Museum on Instagram and I’ve written a bit more on my blog here.
