Unlikely Sources...

This sort of thing has always intrigued me. I’ve spent hours coaxing single sounds out of unsuitable objects (one SMG song is sourced entirely, except for vocals and guitar, from a cage fan) but honestly it never occurred to me to edit a video rhythmically with found sound.

This methodology naturally brings to mind the work of Diego Stocco, which I find incredibly fascinating and inspirational. Every time he puts up a video, I actually set aside a block of time to dissect what he did and think about its ramifications, and as a musician, that’s about the highest complement you can give another musician, I believe. Obviously, Mr. Stocco’s main forte is sound design, but I find what he does with the sounds to be extremely refreshing, and the resulting music is fulfilling without being oppressively songish.

This all dovetails with my favoritest band of all bands, Neubauten, who are the unquestionable masters of creating music out of the detritus of modern society. And there’s a lot of detritus to go around. They’ve got much more traditional in their old age, as the video below demonstrates, but they still use essentially the same tools today that they did early on. They’re just better at bending those tools to their will.

I propose that sound design and songwriting using invented instruments requires as much practice and virtuosity to pull off as, say, being able to play Dueling Banjos. It’s doubly impressive for the fact that the instrument didn’t exist prior to the musician imagining it as such. But ultimately, it’s all pissing in the wind if the song itself isn’t interesting to a non-musician, right?