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The storm that remixed itself

Caldas de rainha RainstormA late summer rainstorm sent in by regular contributor Alan Bleay (whose rhythmic Cities and Memory remixes you can hear here) from his recent trip to Portugal, which marks our first sound from the country. Storm sounds are a pretty common field recording because they’re such an immersive experience (even from indoors) that you just want to grab a recorder and save a piece of the sound, but the interesting thing is how different storms sound depending on where you are in the world, and indeed when, from disappointing British spitting through to sky-splitting thunder (as in Sicily, for instance).

To reimagine this storm, which seemed to have something of a late summer freshness to it from the recording, I’ve tracked effects over multi-layered versions of the original storm sample, but the effects are all responsive to and controlled by the ebb and flow of the original sound, which means the storm effectively composes the melody itself – a true reimagining of what the storm could sound like in another world.

City version:

 

Memory version: