Rolen (Sri Lanka)

Knuckle Range river soundwalk, recorded by Stéphane Marin, reimagined by Leon Huene.

"Stephane's field recording almost immediately reminded me of the beginning of the memory maker scene in "Bladerunner 2049" with the memory maker Dr. Stelline. It made me think of Stephane's recording as being one of her reconstructed memories.

"In my mind, I imagined an entire backstory to this memory maker. She's trying to reconstruct fragments of lost memories to find her father who she lost contact with as a child near a forest river. She suspects he died there as they were running away from something, but doesn't know for sure.

"This is what set the stage for my imagination. I worked on that premise sonically and let the song take me where it was going. To me, it seems after finishing, that Dr. Stelline was trying to retrace all the memories leading up to that point.

"In terms of how I incorporated the recording, I took Stephane's piece and used it during the climax to mimic sidechain compression. I also used it to create percussion. I used Simpler's pitch envelope on Ableton to create a strong transient kick, and snare. I decided to place the river in the climax because, to me, in the story I invented, that represents Dr. Stelline at the edge of the final memory of her father, working at the limits of her knowledge and capabilities as a memory maker.

"I also ended the piece with a light touch of Stephane's river recording. I wanted the whole piece to feel to the listener as though they were accessing a memory."

Image by Stephane Marin.