Carousel

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2023 | 9’40”

fixed-stereo medium

“An effective and convincing piece”

Scott Wilson, composer

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Programme Note

‘Carousel’ is a narrative piece based on an appreciation and recollection of life and growing up. The work can be divided into three prominent sections marking key stages in growth: the first, the evolution of life in the womb through to birth, the second, growing up through childhood to youth, and the third, early adulthood and the uncertainty of the future. I used a variety of sound material for this piece, but the majority is sourced from studio recordings of children’s toys, and memories from my childhood from archived videos and recordings. I was keen to primarily focus on these objects to push the limits of exploration of these sounds and create a coherent development of material. I also wanted to establish a discourse between auratic and abstract sounds, through processing pitched material from a kalimba, accordion, and a toy record player to craft swirling, slowly evolving textures. For the womb section, I initially limited the frequency range to less than 500Hz as this is the audible range of a foetus in utero. As the piece progresses, the listener is exposed to more varied and abrasive material, symbolising the blissful ignorance of childhood. The piece ends with a long, sustained drone accompanied by field recordings of a train platform, reflecting the transition to adulthood and the associated feelings of anxiousness and ambiguity. Often material development is gradual but there are occasional unexpected gestures mirroring the unpredictability of growth.