Show notes
"I was attracted to working with a recording from Thailand for personal reasons. I travelled there some years ago, and lived in a border town, where I volunteered helping a local NGO working with refugees from Burma I had never visited Ayutthaya and the temples, so this work is a chance to visit it in some way. I had visited some other Buddhist temples, and the places and the moods of those experiences are present to me.
"In this field recording, I was initially attracted to the stick/brushing sounds, and I thought of working on a percussive composition using strokes. As it turned out I had less time than I would have needed to compose music, and I ended up working only with field recordings. I was also inspired by the voices in the recording. I cannot understand their meaning. I am guessing the setting is a ritual of some sort. But it might be a profane activity. I did a small amount of research, but not enough to enlighten me on this. I considered finding a translator to help. Finally, I chose to follow my intuition, and leave it open and uncertain for the time being.
"The temples I visited in Thailand were open and welcoming places. The sound in this recording expresses this to me. It suggests the availability of the space to sacred and profane presences at once. I imagine this as an open setting which represents a welcoming and non-judgemental space.
"The file I have submitted contains a blend of four field recordings.
1. The source recording.
2. A motorway joining the edge of the city (Luxembourg)
3. Inside the Cathedral Notre Dame in Luxembourg city
4. The Petruss valley: morning birdsong, Cathedral bells
"Recording 3: The geographical distance I inhabit from the source location in Thailand, and the temporal distance from own experience of visiting Thailand, inspired me to make a connection from there to place where I live. I chose to visit a local sacred building; not a temple, but a religious edifice in my city: the Cathedral Notre Dame. I had hoped to stumble upon a similar kind of sound, perhaps an incidental event. I wanted to avoid any overly religious scenarios, as both soundwise and in meaning I didn’t feel an interest for them in this context. As it happened, I sat in the Cathedral in the morning, and the scenario unfolded just as I had hoped. Just after I was seated and began recording, I heard footsteps approaching the prayer alcove not far from me: someone had come to light a votive candle. There was no other activity in the Cathedral at the time, so this action is well audible in detail, recorded from a distance of about five metres.
"Recording 2: Before making that recording, I had been standing near a highway entrance/exit, at the edge of my city. The cars were coming evenly from both directions. Sonically rich, and apt in meaning, representing a journey in both directions, and journey makers from both orientations crossing paths, and this repeating over and over.
"Recording 4: On the way to the Cathedral for recording 2, I passed through the stunning valley of the Petruss in the city centre. The birdsong in this natural setting seemed the perfect contrast to the highway I had recorded previously. The juxtaposition of these recordings isn’t a sharp contrast. Both are made outdoors, and have tons of natural background ambiance. To my ear the cars and the birds are one vibration resonating in the sky, and the recordings sit with each other nicely.
"These four recordings are blended together to make the following propositions:
"There is a connection between distant places with shared practices (ritual), and common principles in the use of space (temple/church as place of welcome).
"As a metaphor for openness and welcome of both sacred and profane modes of being in a single space, contrasting settings are juxtaposed (cars on a motorway, birds in a wooded valley). The journey between one place and another may go in both directions (cars moving in opposite directions). All the above are held in a totality, represented by nature (valley and resonance of sound, birdsong).
"The single continuous recording throughout the piece is a single take inside a cathedral. It is the last track to fade out at the end. The space in this sound is the space of the observer, holding together the connections suggested in the piece.
"The only audio processing used was a EQ low cut filters on the outdoor recordings. The mixing of the levels for the various fades in and out of the tracks was done with volume automation control in Logic Pro."
Temple sticks at Ayutthaya reimagined by Alan Kavanagh.
IMAGE: H191, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage