I knew some noisers who are presents here on board, that after years of settling into "home recording", finally changing from headphones and convenient set up made out of compromises into different thing, made their work blossom with ideas and new strength.
It is hard to say how common this is nowadays, but the sheer amount of software substitutes one can see, compromises in artwork, compromises in presentation, compromises in aquiring sounds, I sometimes do wonder about how much of noise is born out of reasons of welfare, boredom, availability of easy solutions, etc. I wonder how much does the surroundings and conditions influence the sound thats being done, and can it really be that big, as I sense it would be?
Sometimes when I listen exceptional recordings, I do wonder how they managed to do it? How long it took to gather such a massive amount of source sounds. How difficult it was to process complex mixes that sound very natural. Was recording purely coincidence or totally intentional choise of finding inspiration from specific tools & location?
Based on my own "research", I can't come to other conclusion than seeing the correlation of special circumstances and great recordings. Special, not meaning that it would have to be really that special, but simply even set up of rehearsal bunker and pile of amps, as opposed to computer with synth software. Or source material gathered with effort of going where sounds are, than trying to survive with jiggling box of coins with contact mic taped on it and couple pedals.
I remember being very interested in early industrial pioneers ideas, where for example Z'ev would explain that the process of his percussive noise, starts not from pushing the rec button, but infact much earlier as theft of metal junk objects from junk yards. To make trespassing on place, where one could find metal objects that make the desired sound. It may sounds pretentious, but I feel it has effect to aura of recording, and which I can't feel from many other similar recordings. Just to clarify, talking about very earliest harsh pieces of his.
For some years, I can see now, looking back, I was personally restricted by modern comforts. Thinking one can simply plug few things together and survive. Oh yes, survive indeed, but I also notice when there was no passion bigger than that, no sweat, no sacrifice, no challenge, it was merely good. Or very good. But never amazing. Well, luckily I don't have urge to release everything, so not all the crap was put on circulation for public ridicule or boredom. As soon as I aknowledged situation, I thought that there are measures that needs to be taken. It started process of not creating things that would be no worth to create. Have strategy and execution of idea. Often with attempt to find something special and inspiring from conditions what are unique and not something that are born out of easiness and comfort. Knowing how easy it is to have small piece of metal and apply reverb and distortion. But how much better it will be, when travelling to the object.
As example, Today as one part of the process described, despite freezing weather of -20*C (-4*F), 20km outside Lahti, visit to abandoned tile factory became success. Process of perhaps 3 hours, under layers of winter clothes, commando mask, still with frozen eyes, frozen fingers, going through the structures of ruins of factory, capturing percussions, drones of resonating metal, collisions of broken glass, tiles, wood and metal thrown in concrete halls, metal stairways, wrecked machinery parts, oil barrels,... To withness some weird racket at nearby farm, trying to wander through woods to see what kind of machine would made sounds as that. Perhaps wood chipper (? right word, don't know) echoing in air. It was like listening THE HATERS being performed in middle of nowhere in snowcovered fields. Wandering through train tracks, and while I always have thought how the fuck people get accidentally killed by trains, my attempt to capture that sound described above, was reason I nearly didn't notice approaching train. Couple steps away and still impact of wind from fully loaded train with wood logs and other "industrial product", sound of my overdriving recorder in my ears blasting... it was set to capture much more delicate sound than full speed cargo train at 2 meter distance. Nevertheless, when listening the material at hand, I realize there is no way, this could have been done with any other way. The process alone and sound alone motivates me to continue further. The success of even half finished track is satisfactory. And while I notice that pace of releases is slower, I find myself actually doing more than ever. And through that, I also find myself listening more than ever.
Just like story of Z've inspired me for decades, I'd be very interested to hear if any others are following some similar path... or perhaps I'm just ehm, pretentious wanker? We'll see...
