A thunderstorm in a cathedral
Today’s field recording takes in a recent huge, short thunderstorm to hit London in May 2014, and was submitted by electronica artist Si Begg (AKA Cabbageboy, Buckfunk 3000 etc.), who recorded it upon hearing the storm from his studio in north London and submitted it.
It’s one of a few storm samples we’ve had submitted (see for instance this beauty from Palermo or some rhythmic rain patterns from Southampton), so I wanted to try something a bit different for the remix. Constructed entirely from heavily-effected fragments of the original storm sample, this one is paced over ten minutes or so to expand and contract, matching the ebb and flow of a storm with electronic pulses and slow waves. The initial drone that carries on throughout puts me in mind of a church organ if they had latched notes and variable volume, giving this an almost ceremonial, reverential feel to it. For the last two minutes, I’ve mixed in the original storm sample, as our putative electronic storm melds back into the field recording that gave it life in the first place.
City version:
Memory version:
