Album Spotlight: Boundaries
Boundaries
(Electronic, Orchestral, Cinematic)
Instruments: Synthesizer, Orchestra
Artist’s Statement
Boundaries started as a simple sonic experiment.
Loading the sound of a friend’s laughter into a granular sampler eventually led me to a pleasantly smoothed sound I found quite inspiring.
Rather quickly, my experimental sound design session evolved into an expressive impromptu live performance.
I hit “record” and the first track of the EP took form.
The second track was a challenge I set for myself: translate the complex generative overtones of my granular sampler patch into a full orchestral arrangement.
This demanded a far deeper approach to critical listening than usual.
I needed to listen beyond the notes being played to uncover the hidden harmonies formed from the blending tones.
The orchestration stage required that I apply a deep understanding of the tonal qualities of each acoustic instrument.
This process of reconstructing spectral balance of the first recording was almost a “re-synthesis” approach,
like how a synthesizer or speech synthesis system designer would use the oscillators and tonal generators to match a target
set of changing frequency content over time.
It was particularly interesting applying the such distinct musical characteristics of existing traditional instruments to solve this,
rather than the “simpler” strategy of rebuilding sounds with simple waveforms (like an Inverse Fourier Transform).
I hit “record” and the first track of the EP took form.
Ultimately, after hours of precise detail work, I arrived at a composition I’m quite pleased with.
I feel that both versions have their own place, their own story to tell, unique perspectives from the same seed of inspiration.
Give it a listen, close your eyes, and lose yourself in the deep nuanced layers of these complex soundscapes.