Speaker Voices by Gullfot

Speaker Voices is a triptych of practice pieces (etudes) in electronic music. They were created during 2022, when I was following the core curriculum at Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm.

The pieces are based on field recordings of speaker voices in different contexts. The recordings are overlaid to reveal context-specific tonal gestures and mannerisms, rather than the spoken informational content. Each piece has its own simple but strict compositional rules, and employs different instruments and technologies for the composition and sound design.

Train speakers is based on field recordings during a long-haul train journey in Europe. The piece was aesthetically inspired by the works of Susanne Skog and Marja-Leena Sillanpää, albeit louder, noisier and for sure less sophisticated. The respective lengths of individual recordings have been kept intact to create different sonic combinations of overlays as these are looped. Selected passages have further been processed with Celemony Melodyne and Cableguys Shaperbox, to create a dramaturgic backdrop.

Climate speakers is based on recordings from an international climate conference in Stockholm. The inspiration is drawn from the rhythmic content of the spoken propaganda, and my own anger. The individual recordings have been aligned at the first mention of the word "business", and repeated in three different stanzas. The recordings were grouped in different combinations and used as inputs to a Buchla 200 modular synthesizer.

Yoga speakers is based on recordings during a retreat at Hridaya Yoga in Longeval, France. It is focused on the harmonic content of the recordings, and wavetable synthesis in Xfer Serum. Again the recordings have been left in their original length, aligned at the first occurrence of the tibetan gong that starts the respective class. Pitch information in the voice recordings were used to create interweaving melodic lines, with short quotes as the basis for the individual wavetables. The underlying chord is based on wavetables from a gong sound.

All field recordings where made with an iPhone SE. The resulting smudge, noise and restoration artefacts have been put to good use in all three pieces.

Experimental electronic music and sound art.

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