Imagination. When it all boils down to it, when you try to achieve something combining field recordings with electro-acoustics and turning them into sensible ambient music, it is the imagination of the artist that makes such music work or, when there’s a lack of it, makes it all fall apart.
It is probably that was stuck in the subconscious of Italian artist Guido Affini, when he decided to combine his underwater field recordings with his generated electro-acoustics on his latest 4-track EP Rust‘. A set of conceptual pieces, Affini started out with the following idea:
“These recordings made through hydrophonic techniques are a cross-section of the noise pollution that pervades the industrialised seabed of our seas: the acoustic emanations of commercial ports, the oscillations of wrecks on the seabed, engines, the alarms of cargo ships…
The sounds captured during these sessions are the acoustic instruments on which the timbre, rhythmic and harmonic articulations that make up RUST are experimented with through the granular synths.”
Turning such a concept into music that makes sense is certainly an arduous process, and along with a firm concept and imagination, requires solid artistic background and Affini’s background includes video art, sound installations and music production, something that definitely played an important part in creating an important part in making Rust work coupled with the fact that Affini made a wise decision to keep these pieces relatively short and as realistic as possible.
