"The file selected for me was chosen at random. When Stuart sent me the title/file number, I was very keen to hear the recording though I was not at all expecting to hear the sounds I was to hear in it. Having developed tinnitus over the past year, I have often described the sound I hear to folk when the tinnitus is peaking as ‘like having a plague of locusts buzzing and panning around in my head”. Oh the irony … and the challenge! The original sound recording I was allocated to work with is predominately 5 mins of locusts making a racket of static with only three moments of a clearly discernible human presence in the landscape : a car passing, a plane passing overhead and a short burst of male voices. Those three human/mechanical sound elements, distinct as they are from the hiss of the locusts was where I began this composition. My first attempt to develop a sound piece for this project was firmly in the realm of ‘ambient’ with an intention to sm
