A bit of sound porn from my friend Paul!
We played in the space ship that is Royal Albert Hall, was a crazy open sounding room with a long, warm reverb and a really high ceiling that made it feel amazing. I remember thinking that day how crazy it was that about a year ago I was making a living busking on the streets of Berlin and now I’m traveling and playing with a great band in this awesome venue. All times to remember.
(via vedinamose)
—Aurora in the Forest
Sound Porn 2: Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959)
There is a moment I love when Aurora is rambling through a forest followed by birds and woodland creatures (and Prince Charming). As she wanders she sings to herself and her creature companions. Are forests reverb-full? I simply cannot, for the life of me, remember the last time I tried singing to myself in a forest. However, Aurora’s forest sounds like a massive empty palace ballroom. It sounds as though the actress is being recorded at various distances from the mic to match Aurora’s distance from the shot. It’s classic Disney princess stuff but it’s also really weird sounding. The direction is full of kinesthetic description. Her voice comes and goes just as the character comes and goes from the frame. This underlines the roaming quality of the scene, it describes the glades and the clearings, Aurora’s wistfulness, and it underlines her isolation. Was the actress being directed around a big empty room? It’s strange and beautiful and it is a quality that fired the synapses of my five year old brain.
P.S. If you can, please listen to this on headphones or stereo rather than your computer speakers as you will miss many of these details.
We are now underway for recording a full length album as Electric Chair. In preparation I have been thinking about sound qualities and what qualities I am drawn to. The following is a little series of posts on sound moments that get me *excited*.
The first sound porn moment is from Return to Oz, 1985, music written by David Shire. When Dorothy enters a palace hall lined in mirrors the witch Mombi is sitting on her throne playing a shimmering, glassy theme on her mandolin. In an interview Shire explains “As for the evil forces, Mombi’s theme employs a mandolin, since she plays her own theme on one in the movie. I used a synthesizer for this to get a slightly unreal mandolin sound that I could better control.” If you remember and love the music from Return to Oz this interview is well worth reading for the insight it gives into how the score was composed. Surely, I will find a moment in the album to evoke a beautiful witch sitting on her throne in a hall of mirrors calling you to her….
—Mombi's Mandolin
Sound Porn 1 - Mombi’s Mandolin
Coco Davis with Tom Rodwell and Damian Horner-Pausma of Storehouse.
Coco with Storehouse. Splore. 2012.
—Haunted House
Haunted House. Coco Davis - vocals, Tom Rodwell - guitars, Art Terry - parlour piano, Damian Horner-Pausma - percussion. Originally recorded by Bessie Smith in 1923.
