This a piece I created for the Hack the Bells remix competition for carillon. Instruments and sounds emanating for instruments such as Carillons and Bells were once keynote sounds in the pre-industrial soundscape. They would resonant far into the surrounding land, as far as the ear could travel, unobstructed by the din that now dominates the acoustic landscape. As time passed and the “sacred noise” of industry rose up, these sonorous outbursts have been strangled into submission. This piece harks/hacks back to that time when the subtlety of such timbral detail could be appreciated, a side-effect being that other sounds could also live and breath in harmony. I have included occasional sonic clues of what was to come, but for the most part I have focused on an unimpaired look to the audible horizon, traveling on the undulating wind with the carillon.
Audio material used in the piece in generated from the sample library (CC BY-SA 4.0) of the carillon in the Sather Tower at the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco, America. Additional field recording is from a forest location in Limerick, Ireland.
Alan Gleeson 