I have come through the other side with the final piece for the KunstRadio commissions - this would be the composition whose source material is the recordings of Uli Kuehn's works, as completed at KunstRadio at the end of September last year. This piece stumped me for quite a while. Uli's live improvisation on his 'Robot' was the recording that I focussed on and I could not shake the feeling that it was already complete. After time away from the sounds I began again in Jan 2013 and this time, had success..... This composition will be interesting to contrast against the first ('The Broken Return'), in that while the first composition used source material consisting of field recordings of Andreas Trobollowitsch's piece, 'Minigit' as installed at the Moozak festival in Vienna, 2012, this second composition follows a similar process but somewhat reversed. I created a composition using the sounds of Uli's work, for the intent of finding a suitable environment in the ACT, to play this piece back in, and record a field recording of the sonic result. I have finalised the initial composition and now, it is just a matter of finding the correct time and place, to unleash the sounds into.
The image above was taken when I went looking for environments for the sounds. I spent half a day driving out of the ACT city and listening to it's rural edges. There was talk of a storm at the time of leaving home to start the drive and by the time I reached areas that began to interest me, the clouds were well and truly brewing. Perhaps I will end up recording this piece in the rain - I think I would like to - however, the downpours I have experienced in Canberra do not qualify as light enough so as to not damage my microphones. Any equipment left exposed would be well and truly drenched and I do not want to record with a 'blocked' sky. If I am to record outdoors (as is my wish) the the sound must be able to travel unrestricted.
So far I have looked at areas heading towards Brindabella, on the NSW border. I'm still unsure as to where I will end up but I am waiting for the hot weather to start again so as the cicadas and crickets start their songs. Till then, like the storm, I am waiting......
