I’ve never been involved in post-production sound work before, so I went along to a classmate’s foley studio session to observe the process of recording foley in the LCC recording studio. We had some minor difficulties connecting the monitor to the external speakers, and I found myself slightly overwhelmed by the setup controls. After spending …
Author archives: Nathan Benitez
My Chosen Foley Scene (Sound for Screen)
The famous train scene in Spirited Away, by Hayao Miyazaki, is one of most groundbreaking scenes in animation history. This film encapsulated the dream-like atmosphere of a fantastical adventure just perfectly, which is why it stands as one of my favourite films. This particular scene is one of the most memorable to me as it …
RYOJI IKEDA: THE TRANSFINITE
Ryoji Ikeda Exhibition Experience
Recently I visited a walk-through exhibition by Ryoji Ikeda. Ryoji is a Japanese visual and sound artist. His work is primarily concerned with sound in a variety of “raw” states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing. I found the exhibition to be a …
Writing Poetry to a Picture
For my sound piece, I wanted it to be based around a poem written to an image or painting. A painter friend of mine sent me a picture of a painting they did recently. I loved the simplicity of it as well as the blend of warm colours and tones. There are three birds shown …
Prarie WWWW
Recently, I’ve been captivated by this Tawainese band called ‘Prarie WWWW’. Prairie WWWW are an experimental folk band formed in Taipei, Taiwan in 2010. Their music combines poetry, folk, ambient and tribal elements. I’ve been listening to their catalog of music and found that many of their pieces draw me into a spacious and unfamiliar …
Automatic Writing Exercise
Above is my attempt at automatic writing, or ‘psychography’. I’ve always been curious about this writing technique and found putting it into practice to be quite amusing. Most of what I had written turned out to be pretty unintelligible, although I had never done this before so I was quite surprised to have some comprehensible …
Exquisite Afternoon Raag Bhimpalasi
After visiting practitioner Bishi’s insightful talk, I did some more research into traditional Indian music and sounds stemming from Indian culture out of pure interest and fascination. I came across this live musical performance by Patiala Gharana and other musicians. I found her ability to be so agile within the vocal melody almost mind-blowing. The …
BiSHI – Don’t Shoot The Messenger (First listen and thoughts)
I thoroughly enjoyed Bishi’s practitioner lesson and afterwards decided to listen to some of her work. I enjoyed learning about how she implements her culture into her art and practice. I had a listen to her most recently released work, a single titled “Don’t Shoot The Messenger” and these were my initial thoughts. The first …
Continue reading “BiSHI – Don’t Shoot The Messenger (First listen and thoughts)”
Bishi Bhattacharya
Bishi, a UK based musician, is an artist with an ongoing collection of striking audio and visual work. I found it interesting to learn about how she transforms her sitar into a “rock sitar” by putting it through guitar pedals. Her innovation and dedication to create something bold and memorable inspired me. “I am Indian …