Charlie's Spectre

Tuning back, microtonally, through the continuum of time, listening, once again.

H-pi.com tuning box fed by Axis 64 into a v-synth XT creating microtonal clusters. MDT digital trumpet playing over that. Archival audio of crash is manipulated.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Axis
• 64
• microtonal

[junkdraws]

Wow, frightening. The pained and plaintive sounding voice really adds to this effect - descent into madness or perhaps a black hole. I'm very curious about the video in these as well. Perhaps you could give a little detail in that regard. I'd also like to know about "Charlie" - is it a Vietnam reference?

[57lowe]

Thanks for your comments. Here is a hint...

n that unbelievable half minute, broadcaster Herb Morrison suddenly found himself reporting the biggest story of his life -- and it was almost too much for him. His smooth delivery became a jumble of impressions as the emotions of the unfolding disaster took hold. "It's burst into flames...get this, Charlie, get this, Charlie. Oh, it's 4 or 500 feet into the sky, it's a terrific crash ladies and gentlemen...oh, the humanity and all the passengers!"

[57lowe]

I start my videos as experiments in music. Here, I set the narration, painful already, to some of my microtonal music with the pitch of his voice maintained, but the pace slowed way down. It becomes almost too much to hear. Once the music is done I search for video content, public domain in this case. I then manipulate the video to match what I feel in the music.

[57lowe]

I was struck about how little is said of Charlie, the person presumably doing the recording of Mr. Morrison. What raw sounds. I imagined myself somehow going back in time and seeing and hearing the scene, but only through a strange shimmering veil of time distortions.

[junkdraws]

You know, Hindenburg occurred to me briefly, but then I wasn't sure how abstract this was or how much footage of different things was included. I feel like I catch bits and pieces of the monologue, but I wasn't sure I had enough to make sense of it. It doesn't really matter, though; the feelings of fear and helplessness and, as I said, madness come through very profoundly in this piece. And with regard to time distortions, this video is quite striking in its impression of other-wordly tragedy.