As I listened to Bassel’s voice, the words that came to mind immediately were “lost in time” and “forever” and “space communications.” I immediately saw images of giant dish antennas in some Nevada desert devoid of people or animals. Just radio hiss & static and the occasional gust of wind & dust. Long after civilization has collapsed and disappeared and we’ve all gone, all that’ll be left of us will be recorded tones and notes and voices on radio and mp3 files.
The piece begins with Bassel’s recorded message. I sampled the entirety of his message and set it to self-sequence at set intervals throughout the track (I used Reaper). The blips and bleeps and blorps are those intervals, playing, via modulation using the Madrona Labs Virta. The main instrument playing is an acoustic bass (created using Madron Labs Kaivo). In the background too, the “volume increase/decrease” sound is used as a reference point/tempo. It’s supposed to signify Bassell forever pressing the “volume increase” button on the laptop because he cannot hear us. And the volume increase also never comes to an end for us, as we will never be able to hear his voice again. This is all we have left of Bassell. There is a third instrument too–I used a self-generating tone machine (made using Madrona Labs Aalto) and modulated via pitch control.
I think it is important to embrace the lofi nature of the recording as life is full of “lofi” moments that we cannot erase or remove or make to sound clean and pretty. If anything, the lofi sounds and hiss and muffle are there to fill the empty spots and broken moments. It’s the GLUE of life.