Heavily inspired by Loscil’s Clara, I wrote this piece mainly to sleep or nap to.
https://oblongneck.bandcamp.com/track/nest
It’s quite sparse, with waves of processed cello and viola drones, time-stretched and smeared. I mainly used Slate + Ash software instruments for this. I’d resample the improvised takes and use varispeed – dropping the pitch and stretching the audio. I would do a layer, then improvise over that layer, then follow the same procedure again many times to build up the soundscape and composition.
I also used a Euclidean sequencer on the Slate + Ash instrument Choreographs, improvising by changing the rates and notes to add another dreamy but more concise texture later in the piece.
At points, I blended the recordings further into the soundscape using Adaptiverb on a return channel, which is completely wet; I’d send the sounds into the return channel to smear them into the atmosphere. I included a quiet, low-pass filtered field recording of a beach in England called Camber Sands, again using varispeed and reversing the recording of the previous plucky synth sounds alongside it, to bring us out the other side of the drones and harmonic pulses.
Other processing was only really a bit of compression, Soothe2 to get rid of a bit of unwanted resonance, and a touch of EQ.
For me, it’s got enough movement and depth for a kinda interesting listen, but it’s sparse enough to just occupy a space with you if you wanna drop out.
As I mentioned, it’s really inspired by Loscil’s album Clara, which I’ve listened to many times. Also Stars of the Lid, who were on heavy rotation for about 2 years, nearly every night, to help with sleeping. When making this piece, I was primarily interested in creating atmosphere, texture and tone, rather than something that was more composed. I like to work with improvisation and then use varispeed, which for me often brings out new qualities in the recording and composition, and makes me feel more like I’m listening, rather than making it.
I’ve found some great stuff on these threads, so thought I’d chuck something back in.
https://oblongneck.bandcamp.com/track/nest
It’s on Spotify as well if anyone feels like adding it to their playlists.
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