silo > sound composition of field recordings  (listening via headphones or conventional speakers recommended)

playing time: 18.13 min.

Silo

In the summer of 2021, during a road trip through the northern Spanish countryside, I discovered an abandoned, dilapidated cattle farm. Next to an old barn, I found a fallen metal feed silo. Listening through an opening in the silo’s wall, I heard subtle reflections of ambient sounds and an ominous rattling, ticking and creaking of the silo in the wind.

Intrigued by these evocative sounds, I started investigating the diversity of sounds that could be created with the silo as a sound object. I played the outer wall of the silo with my hands and body weight and worked the wall with all kinds of materials lying around on site, such as scrap wood, wire, hay and rags.

The improvisations on-site resulted in over two hours of raw stereo recordings, made in the made in the empty interior space of the silo. Using samples from these recordings as sonic building blocks, I created the sound composition.

To represent the specific spatiality and timbre of the silo as realistically as possible, I limited myself during mixing to:

  • Minimal EQ-ing and volume leveling;
  • No processing through distortion/overdrive, pitch/modulation, delay/reverb, or other audio effects.
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