Sound Traces: It's always rainy somewhere

by Arne Banki

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1.	Rain. Freight trains, empty street. Late winter, early evening. Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2014. 20:25	buy track
2.	Rain. Incoming heavy thunderstorm, vehicles. Autumn, late evening. East Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2016. 20:41	buy track
3.	Rain. Calm rainstream, one clean thunder. Winter, late afternoon. Ptuj, Slovenia, 2017. 20:13	buy track
4.	Rain. Tent, campsite, distant thunders. Summer, early morning. Adriatic sea, Croatia, 2016. 12:59	buy track
5.	After the rain. Birds, garbage truck. Spring, late morning. Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2018. 10:45	buy track

about

Out of dozens of urban rain recordings, spanning between 2014 and 2018, these particular five pieces stood out with its nice and steady ambience, just enough (variety of) happening and an unintentional plot that almost always has a beginning and ending.

The events within each recording many times happen in intriguing harmony - sometimes not much is going on for several minutes then suddenly a car passes by, followed by a plane that fades out into incoming freight train which crescendoes into a rich thunder. And then all goes quiet again.

It almost seems like there is no other natural sound ambience out there that transfers a listener into imaginary setting or triggers emotional response so quickly as the sound of rain. As opposed to a recording of a sunny day, it needs no visual or contextual description - it is very much a self-explanatory event where one thing is very obvious - there are drops of water falling from the sky onto the ground and objects, there are clouds involved (usually in infinite variation of gray) and it is generally best to stay warm and dry under a roof.

There are two other factors that I find intriguing about the sound of the rain - the stable, constant and almost infinite white noise versus the detailed, clear and momentary voice of a single drop. The sound of a collective vs. the sound of an individual.

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Tech notes: Sounddevices 664 with Schoeps microphones, Zoom H2n and H6 with internal microphones. Extended postproduction, mostly stereo and mid-side corrections to ensure the natural experience of ambience. One instance of full-track suppresion of distant but overwhelming highway noises. Several occasions of audio clipping on track 3 due to surprisingly loud thunders.

credits

released November 18, 2018

Arne Banki - field recordings, cover design & photography, audio editing

Published by Mimi Hadaka / Murmur Institute
hadaka.bandcamp.com
www.murmur.si

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