5.30 pm: This is what anti-ISIS techno sounds like

This is the one sound that kept following me around seemingly wherever I went. After a long walk through Altona on a rainy afternoon, with nothing but nondescript general street sounds to be heard, I stumbled across a political protest against the ISIS terrorist group: hundreds of people in a crowd listening to speeches broadcast via a megaphone, followed by cheering and chants. Remarkably quickly, dozens of armed police turned up and formed a perimeter around the protest in the event that it became violent. I later heard that similar protests the previous day had ended in violence across the city, so the police were taking no chances. This protest was to move on from Altona, via St. Pauli to the city centre by the rail station – and I would come across it several more times as my journey and that of the protestors crossed. You’ll be able to hear it again in a few hours’ time, with a much heavier police presence as we move into the late evening.

Here, Tim Waterfield has taken the source sample and constructed a full-on blockbusting techno track out of it, constructing many of the sounds from the speeches and songs of the protest. It’s a gargantuan sound to make from the original recording, and matches some of the urgency and power of the original. For those interested in the process, there’s also a ‘naked’ version of the remix, which contains only the elements made from the original field recording, so you can see how they were built and then what was layered on top to make the final recording. Fascinating stuff.

City version:

Memory version:

‘Naked’ memory version (only samples from the original):