Arrival

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I used Diego Espeleta's recording of a dawn chorus in Costa Rica as the starting point for my composition 'Arrival'. I wanted this piece to communicate an uplifting feeling - the joy of arriving at your destination and the wonder of exploring a new place. This is what field recording has been for me - a way to explore more deeply. The joy of collecting sounds and immersing yourself into a new landscape feels almost childlike - just like children collecting rocks and feathers and other pretty keepsakes to bring home and remember things by.
"Additionally, I have used a few of my own field recordings in this composition - the bells of sheep in the village of Aulus-les-Bains in the French Pyrenees, and some recordings I made with my brother in my hometown of Bergen, Norway. We went to an old, empty military base on a day right after Christmas, and recorded the sounds and vibrations of icy, empty metal buildings with a LOM Geofón he gifted me. The composition features the sounds of us both singing into a huge metal pipe, and I have also worked sounds of us hitting this same pipe into the drum beat. As I have lived in the UK for so long, arriving home in Norway now also feels like an adventure.
"Two arpeggiated synth lines are at the centre of this composition, wandering and shifting as the track develops, with multiple ascending parts joining in, as well as a peaceful, deep pad. I wanted to use Diego's field recording throughout most of the track - when it is introduced it is processed with a low pass filter and vibrato, to bring out the rain taps on the leaves and make the birdsong sound a little bit strange. Towards the build up at the end of the A section I have also used an additional section of the dawn chorus recording processed with a spectral shimmer for an etherial, high pitched, shimmery sound that takes us into the B section.
"In the B section the synths drop out and are replaced with a driving beat, doubled with metallic pipe hits. We can now hear the unprocessed, stereo field recording for the first time. This section is slowly built with layers of bells, synth and vocal samples, and I have doubled a section of the morning chorus that featured an especially melodic bird call, to act as a lead melody."
Costa Rica dawn chorus reimagined by Sara Wolff.
Part of the Sound of Adventure project in partnership with Exodus Travels. To learn more and explore the full collection, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/adventure.