Solace in Endings

Oct 11, 2019, 12:50 PM

Stuttgart station reimagined by Andrew Tulloch.

"A tad apocalyptic I’m afraid…

I imagine the piece as a wander through a station after climate change has irretrievably altered our world for the worst. The building has become a small town of improvised shelters inhabited by people displaced by crop failure, lack of water, the collapse of previously existing states. Some of the machinery still works, some has been adapted to new uses. Everyone is quietly getting on with their lives, cooking, socialising, singing. Passing through the station bears witness to the plight of these people, as well as paying final respects to the optimism of the industrial age which led to this ever-worsening disaster.

The idea of a post-apocalyptic train station arose fairly quickly after hearing the recording & considering the words at hand.

I originally planned to build a playable instrument by sampling portions of the recording & use that to play something melancholy over manipulated sections of the original recording, perhaps also taking a granular scan through the train noises at the end for textural interest.

However, the recording itself proved so atmospheric & beautifully captured, it didn’t feel appropriate straying too much from the original sound. Instead, I worked through the recording, finding interesting moments which would loop well, and arranged these looping sections into a piece which builds a fictional landscape. Some subtle effects were added, but not too many as the recording provides its own sense of space/ambience. I enjoyed imagining what the noises might be in their new recontextualised form, and listening to the interplay of rhythms formed by the different loop lengths overlaying each other. I particularly enjoy the voices.

The piece was assembled using Logic Pro, employing a number of 3rd party plugins."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words