Posted on Jul 31, 2021
I have recently taken part in a YouTube challenge organized by Caminauta, aiming at exploring the relation between music and image.
Creative process behind the track:
Looking at the photograph, I kind of distinguished two distinct layers. On the foreground, there is this blurry orange color that I thought could be an artefact due to analog photography. This warm orange color contrasts with the background layer and its dominance of blue. That is why I created a track divided in two parts (only the first part is featured in the video).
The first part of the track aims at transposing the warm layer. The main element is a tape loop, on which I sampled a a track from a soundbank composed by Awakened Souls. We can hear some analog artefacts and sound deterioration coming from the cassette. I added a couple of VST effects on it, to give it a bit more depth.
The second part focuses on the rest of the photograph, that I associate to end-of-summer melancholy for some reason I cannot really explain. For this, I used my electric guitar, and spent some time trying to find the best combination of reverb and delay settings, so it sounds atmospheric and reflects the depth of the skyline.
All along the track, I wanted some percussions (a kick drum and a tambourine) to represent the birds’ movements. I could not resist adding a track of Korg Monotribe, my favourite synthesizer. Also, by shaking/moving a glass jar filled with rice then processing the recording with VST effects, I created a background noise that can remind of waves and wind sounds. A synthetic FX sound obtained after distorting and filtering a bad VST synthesizer comes regularly and creates another “wave” sound.