A piece assembled, not composed The unit of work is not a song with parts but a length of recorded time built out of found and captured material, layered until it holds together. What that changes about how you listen to it.
Pieces
Duration as a decision Nothing here has to end at three minutes. What sets the length instead.
Pieces
The long fade Beginning and ending without an event, and why it works.
Pieces
Titles as labels Names that describe the source rather than a subject.
Pieces
Sequencing a record Order as the last compositional act.
Pieces
Preparing a guitar Objects placed between and on the strings change the instrument into a set of unpredictable resonators. What is reliable about it and what is not.
Methods
Bowing a string Sustaining a note on an instrument built to decay.
Methods
Tape as an instrument Loops, speed changes and layering treated as playing rather than editing.
Methods
The turntable as a source A record player operated as an instrument rather than a playback device.
Methods
Room as reverb Recording a space on purpose instead of adding one later.
Methods
Shellac 78rpm discs are loud, narrow-band and full of surface noise, and all three are material rather than defects.
Sources
Surface noise The crackle as a layer with its own rhythm.
Sources
Field recording Going out with a recorder and coming back with time rather than a sound.
Sources
Wind and handling The two things that ruin a location take, and the physical fixes.
Sources
Provenance Knowing where a fragment came from, and why the archive records it.
Sources
Scoring with texture A film cue that carries dread without a theme, a key or a resolution.
Scores
What a drone does to a scene Sustained sound and the way it changes the pace of a cut.
Scores
Diegetic or not Sound that might be in the room, and the ambiguity as a tool.
Scores
Silence as a cue Removing everything as the loudest available move.
Scores