Searching for monstrous sounds in Loch Ness

We’re really pleased to have a series of guest posts this week from sound artist Dan Tapper, who explores the relationships between sound, art, science and nature. As part of his work, he toured around Scotland taking field recordings and reimagining them using an iPad with various sound apps, and he’s kindly shared them to be part of Cities and Memory.

Dan introduces his Scottish recordings in his own words:

“The project was part of my ongoing practice in creating sound diaries via field recording techniques combined with composition both conventional and electroacoustic. As I was travelling by bike and camping it was important for me to have a recording set up I could sustain/power throughout my trip with minimal opportunities to recharge. Everything was powered by a power cell which could store mains energy equivalent of several recharges and also collect solar energy. My setup consisted of: Olympus LS100 recorder, two self made contact mics/hydrophones, self made binaural mics, iPad running various sound processing apps. The aim was to use all the recordings taken over the trip to create a sound journey using both the raw sounds collected, combined with processed/more composed counterparts of the sound, creating a hyper real experience, highlighting the sonic areas that resonated most strongly with me from each recording.

“I used the opportunity of the memory compositions to create these hyper real recordings, each memory focuses on amplifying a sonic area that was important to me in each location.”

And on this specific recording from Loch Ness, Dan tells us that “Loch Ness focuses on the resonance of the rain falling on my tent, evolving into the sounds of the loch itself. The audio is processed and rearranged to highlight resonant areas of sound whilst also keeping alive the relaxing quality of the water.”

There will be more from Dan’s tour of Scotland as we head through the week, so stay tuned!

City version:

Memory version:

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