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///saints.sprain.rattled in Arbatskaya, Moscow

It’s time to begin our tour of the Three Words project, and we begin in Moscow, Russia, at the entrance to the Arbatskaya station, where we can hear a powerful string duet serenading commuters with a pulsing, dramatic piece of music that’s well suited to the splendour of the Mosco metro.

City version:

Rob Knight has taken this sound from Arbatskaya station and the three-word location code ///saints.sprain.rattled to create his piece “Hilde”:

“The word “Saints” inspired me for the name of the piece – Hilde, after Saint Hildegard of Bingen born in 1098, she was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, polymath, philosopher and also a composer.

“As the original piece was recorded at the entrance of a Moscow Metro station it made me think of trains and I wanted the piece to feel hypnotic at times, like an underground train.

“Which leads me onto the other word “Rattled”. Again referring back to the original recording the word “Rattled” made me think of the sound of a tube train as it rattles and clatters over the tracks. I used a processed field recording of a tube train later in the piece which l felt tied it all together.”

Memory version: