A Tale of Two Cities

Reimagined by Andrea Chang.

"One of the inspirations for this piece was a photo I saw online of what Syria was like before and after the wars and turmoils occurring in that area. https://i.imgur.com/nOBzhrM.jpg The first half of this track represents the dark and tumultuous effects of war on a country. This was done through taking the original recording, starting with the section with the bells clanging, which I reversed the audio of that whole section until the end. So if you listen to the recording, at 0:12, that is the sound of the clanging bells reversed with an added delay. Then I composed an unsettling music ambience that creates a sense of uneasiness with its unstable meters and eery sounding textures. The percussive nature of the piece starts off with some more organic sounding hand drums that grow into loud booming drums, into exploding distorted electric booms panning back and forth, representative of flying explosions and the destruction that occur in wars. The piece then unravels a little bit and you get from 1:20- 1:48 little after shocks of the war that haunt you a little (with the usage of the short snips of reversed materials). Then the second half of the piece until the end is reminiscent of the land before being ruined and a sort of emerging from the ashes toward a more hopeful future. I took the original recording with it cleaned up and enhanced and played it forward (instead of backward/reversed like in the first section) to indicate that this is how things should be. The city sounds healthy with its natural energy and bustling and there is music I composed below it that represents a sense of serenity and hope. It is in essence like a tale of two cities. "