I started working on this sound piece with an Ableton pre-set called ‘dark one’. I then ran it through Valhalla Supermassive, which is a reverb plug-in. I used this as my main instrument to work from. I did consider using the Mother 32, which I mentioned in a previous blog, but while I was starting out with Ableton I found this sound and thought it was perfect. I then layered a lo-fi synth lead on top and took a speech passage from a movie called ‘Taste Of Cherry’. I transposed it down, reversed it, and ran it through a plug-in called ‘wires’, which emulates the sound of a soviet wire recorder. This gives it a very grainy and alien sound. The reason I chose the movie ‘Taste of Cherry’ was because it deals with the themes of suicide and mental illness, which is a prominent theme in my music. The movie is about a man wanting to commit suicide and his search for someone to help bury him once he’s dead, but because he lives in Iran it is much more difficult, as suicide is seen more as a taboo. The reason I admire this film is because it is very minimalistic and quite powerful. It is not a graphic film, receiving a PG rating by the BBFC.
As mentioned, my track was made using Ableton, using a mixture of Ableton presets and my own sounds. I used a field recording I made in October 2021 with Jose on a field recording trip, which was a contact mic placed up against a vent on the Southbank. I took this and transposed it down, and panned it. I also used some fx sounds I found on Ableton. As the piece has a gritty, dystopian sci-fi feel to it, I thought the use of fx could be an interesting way to add some more depth. Also, as I mentioned in a previous blog, Tod Dockstader created special fx sounds for his work in Television and Film. I thought it would be a good fit for my piece. I used another drone for the end of the piece but tried to keep the track as minimal as possible. With ambient music, I find the most interesting ambient/dark ambient music is made with minimal materials/sounds.