The Age Of Anxiety: Collaboration with Pete Townshend
Collaborating with Pete Townshend on his art installation The Age of Anxiety marked a pivotal moment in my career. Pete, known as the principal songwriter and guitarist of The Who and ranked 10th on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time," invited me to compose and produce a soundscape for his ambitious project. The installation explores themes of nature, anxiety, and transcendence, blending music, visuals, and narrative elements.
The Concept: Angels and Nature
Soundscape #7, the piece I contributed, is situated at a significant point in the narrative: the protagonist, Nikolai, experiences a vision of angels following his death. Pete described this moment as a convergence of nature and music, prompting me to explore the idea of representing these angels through the sounds of birds. My goal was to create a sonic world that bridged the organic and the ethereal, blurring the line between reality and imagination.
Child Birds
To bring this vision to life, I created a flock of generative "child birds" that combined real bird tweets with human voices. Using recordings of my own voice at age eight and my brother's voice at thirteen, processed through the Hachijo Tape Manipulator and modular synthesizers, I programmed each bird with its own behaviors. The result was a dynamic and unpredictable flock that reflected the fragmented, surreal state of mind in the narrative.
The child birds' hectic and erratic movements added a dreamlike quality to the soundscape, complementing the natural elements while maintaining their otherworldly identity. This creative process expanded my technical and artistic horizons, pushing me to explore new ways of integrating human and synthetic elements.
Piano Birds
Another key element of Soundscape #7 was the creation of "piano birds," inspired by Pete’s description of angels accompanied by piano sounds. These birds were created using recordings of a Yamaha upright piano I meticulously tuned and recorded at the abandoned Hachijo Royal Hotel in Japan. By muting two strings per note and using synthetic felt, I achieved a unique tonal quality, which I layered with bird tweets, modular synthesizer bleeps, and resonances from rusty objects.
The piano birds represented a fusion of the mechanical and the natural, forming a bridge between the soundscape’s human and angelic dimensions.
Extended Soundscapes
To enhance the spatial and environmental authenticity of Soundscape #7, I employed extended soundscapes recorded in rural southern Portugal, along the Atlantic coast, where I spent four months gathering material. Field recordings of sheep bells, bird sounds, and natural ambiances were combined with sounds captured in the Seychelles, contributing a diverse array of textures to the composition.
A highlight was incorporating field recordings made by Dara Irani, the blind nephew of Avatar Meher Baba, in 1978s. These recordings, initially captured for Pete using a portable tape recorder, included spiritual talks and atmospheric sounds from India. Pete provided access to this material, allowing me to integrate elements of Irani’s recordings into the soundscape, enriching its cultural and historical depth.
The Artistic Process
The process of creating Soundscape #7 was deeply immersive and technically demanding. For today, Pete’s art installation is almost completed, and I’m incredibly excited to behold it in its entirety. The use of techniques like "Flying Mics," generative birds, and multi-layered recordings brought the composition to life, aligning seamlessly with Pete’s vision for The Age of Anxiety.
This project has been one of the most inspiring collaborations of my career, offering a profound exploration of art, nature, and technology in a way that continues to shape my creative journey.
Credit: Tata Vislevskaya