Make something beautiful out this alarming elevator soundfile…..

Sometimes, it takes a while to get the muse and some sounds don’t instantly jump out as being very workable and here is a case in point. As I’ve said before, working with mostly one field recording as the primary sound source to create sound pictures, results in some surprising changes to the sound but often throws up many technical difficulties too. It also shows how my mind can hear strange things and my imagination sees not your usual sound worlds as a result.

For this challenge, Alarming Elevator, to make something beautiful is easier said than done. I have a very low tech / lo fi method of processing and this resulted in the elevator morphing into ‘organ like’ sounds, and this was my starting point. Most of my tracks are best listened via headphones and if you listen carefully there is an odd tapping on one of the samples I created, which comes from the elevator doors shutting, as when someone plays a church organ. Combined with multi layering of sounds, for some reason, I imagined an Octopus swimming in an underwater cave, moving as they do, across a sea organ’s keys. Its movements make for a very haphazard experimental fugue, whilst the cave reverberates with strange noises and feedback..

Whether the result is beautiful might be for conjecture but at least my lonely octopus plays its organ fugue beautifully to my ears.

You can listen to the full podcast here