Class of 2026
B.A. in Global Culture and Theory
I spent this summer exploring the soundscape of North Carolina. While I was living in Durham and recording music with my friends, I became interested in how noise, low-fidelity recordings, and “imperfections” can be used to create interesting music rather than hindering its quality. How can noise from humans, nature, and machines be synthesized or sampled in music as a representative aspect of modern life? I began my project by collecting recorded sounds as raw material. This included samples of everyday life, like cars driving, water flowing, people talking in a grocery store, etc. Then, I started experimenting with “synthesized” noise, connecting multiple pedals together that distorted and fuzzed the sounds of my guitar. I layered guitars together via a loop pedal and recorded many live takes. I also made contact mics, which are basically things that detects electric signals through contact and transform them into audio signals. After having all the materials I needed, I made several tracks that incorporated elements of ambient, drone, and noise through sound collages. The resulting tracks explored several themes, including our changing concept of time in modern life and an attempt at challenging a fixed notion of time / rhythm, the intersection of nature and machines, and a sense of spatiality in recorded music.