What happens when a highway decides to beatbox?


I've just posted Here are several new tracks on SoundCloud.

The above track is a short track of manipulated highway sounds. (The picture is of a booth at a street fair for a funeral home. Yes, those are actually balloons on the hearse. It's courtesy of my brother Kevin. Thanks.)

The sound of vehicles driving on Highway 403 heading between Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario and the sounds of a starting car were recorded in the summer of 2010. These sounds were then superimposed, looped and repeated to evoke the relentless rhythms of traffic always present on this highway (the major highway in and out of the city). This highway bisects the regenerating Cootes Paradise marsh, a location both environmentally and historically important to the city, and Kay Drage Park, a recreational park built on the site of a former landfill. For most people passing through Hamilton, the highway is the most iconic audio representation of the former industrial city, however, just beside the highway is the large marsh increasingly filled again with a great variety of the sounds of wildlife. Like the sounds of a train whistle, the traffic sounds are strangely beautiful and compelling but yet evoke the places which are both left behind and arrived at.

There are also a couple other new tracks including work which incorporates sound poetry, opera singing, noise, applause, and other found sounds.

The tracks can be accessed here.

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