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SCOSM Field Recording No​.​1 : Battery Steele

by Synth Club

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about

SCOSM Field Recording No.1 : Battery Steele is the first collaborative release from The Synth Club of Southern Maine, an informal community based around synthesizers and electronic music production, in Portland Maine.

The first of what will hopefully be many collaborative projects and releases.

Instructions to participants were:
— Collect field recordings from Battery Steele on Peaks Island
— Create a piece of music using said recordings

INFO/NOTES

Artwork by Mark Price

01 Cristy Falcone / Ziggurat Ceremony 1

02 Matt Nelson / Untitled

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make something dance-y, with a strong and recognizable beat. Because Battery Steele so clearly lends itself to more spacey/amorphous/ambient music, I was interested in trying to do the opposite. So I knew I was going to have to manipulate the recordings a lot to get more recognizable drum and synth sounds out of them. I started by bringing all my recordings into Ableton and listened for little snippets that could work as rhythmic loops or as one shots for making drum and synth patches in Ableton’s Sampler. I picked a couple of loops that worked rhythmically with a little bit of time stretching, and then spent a lot of time molding one-shot samples into drum/synth-ish sounds by re-pitching, filtering, messing with envelopes, etc. After that it was just a matter of programming some simple beats + a couple chords, throwing in some melodic-ish bits, and liberally applying/tweaking effects. It was super fun and I’m looking forward to doing it again!

03 Stefan Hanson / Feral Children

04 Patrick Carey / Battery 3

I found this trip to Battery Steele to be very moving. Fog and mist, total darkness, coupled with laughter and purpose. It all culminated with group singing. The ferry ride home in the thickest fog. Moments I hope to never forget.

This is a series of recordings stitched together to elicit my feelings from our group recording trip.

05 Sam and Theodore Rich / Peaks

Here’s a thing I made with my three year old son, Theo. It’s a loop of some whistling we did in the tunnel over another recording Theo took of us walking through. Then we ran everything through a Korg MS-20 Mini while he twiddled the knobs and we layered takes on top of the loop.

06 Ursidae / A Day In The Battery

All sounds were recorded on a day trip to peaks island with Jacob DeRaadt. Using field recorders and found materials, we set up on opposite ends of the crowded tunnel and recorded various textures, all peppered with the background noise of tourists. We can both be heard in the distance of each others recordings. The sounds were processed in ableton live and mixed in Reaper, some effects were used but its important to note that no reverb was added to any recording, the battery makes its own reverb. No additional sound sources were used, although some filters and synthesizers were used to add effects like vibrato and delay. A majority of these recordings are binaural, headphones are recommended for full effect.

07 Ron Harrity / Vicissitudes

Based on a 7-minute field recording of myself walking from one end of the Battery to the other, plus looped samples of us singing in one of the rooms. Performed live from the modular, edited and mixed in Pro Tools with no added reverb or ambience. Thanks Cristy, Matt, Morgan, and Patrick for making the trip out to the island on an auspiciously misty and mysterious summer evening.

08 Tara Rook / Sisters ver. 1

All sounds were recorded at Battery Steele with an Olympus recorder. I used Abelton to produce the piece. I brought a guitar and an ocarina, along with my voice. Adam Sousa was also present for the recording, he played guitar and I recored his throat singing (which is also featured in the track midway through, I turned the sounds into a scale using my midi controller and it kind of came out sounding like a synth/vocoder). All drum sounds were created by manipulating snaps, guitar taps, or the basic ambience of Battery Steele. I also could not leave out the kids singing “Hallelujah”!

09 Dinky Mirage / Mysterious Restricted Site Known Simply as the “Zone”

Made 100% with sounds recorded inside of Battery Steele on June 28th 2018. Rain, drips, smacks, scrapes, vocalizations, micro cassette playback, feedback, pipes, bottles, ECHOES!!!!!!! and more. Features incidental and purposeful sounds made by Me, Ron, Christy, Patrick and Matt. Those sounds were processed, remixed and degraded over and over by Modular Synth, Octatrack Sampler, Blofeld, Modplug Tracker software and cassette tapes. This ended up going in a completely different direction then intended but that’s the magic of samples i guess.

10 Apis Malfiore / unexpected, unrepentant

synth+effects , rocks, concrete, empty spray paint can, confused tourists | I guess I wasn’t the only one who decided to go out to the battery one thursday afternoon, but I was the only one who brought a bunch of noisemakers and a recorder. I wish I hadn’t kept running into them as I walked back to the ferry, that ride back to town was a little awkward....

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released August 3, 2018

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