One of the most intriguing aspects of working with field recordings is the potential to capture chance natural occurrences that produce their own inherent rhythms and/or harmony. Recent recordings by everyone from Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet to Dolphins into the Future have taken this concept and used processing and/or additional instrumentation to further bring out the hidden musical nature of found sounds.
Vanessa Rossetto and Lee Patterson are two artists who have very much made this notion a large part of their own musical aesthetic, so it only makes sense that they would eventually team up. The title of Rossetto and Patterson’s collaboration, Temperament as a Waveform, carries on the discussion of musical material emerging out of found sound but goes further to suggest that mood and emotion can be translated into a pure soundwave itself.
In this extract of the piece from Another Timbre’s YouTube, it becomes apparent that the duo plan to apply their thesis primarily to the realm of frequency. Within these five and a half minutes, Patterson and Rossetto take an unidentifiable field recording and, through processing and the layering of Rossetto’s violin, move from piercing highs to guttural lows and finally to a warm mid-range-y drone. It’s a wonderfully mixed and intriguing preview of how the register and timbre of natural sounds can affect our perceptions of emotion.
Temperament as a Waveform is out via Another Timbre later this month. You can preview the track below.
• Vanessa Rossetto: http://www.musicappreciationrecs.com
• Lee Patterson: http://www.myspace.com/therealleepatterson
• Another Timbre: http://www.anothertimbre.com
More about: Vanessa Rossetto
