DIAL

[snoozefestaudio]

An embed of the first DIAL track appears at the end of the entry.

So, a few days ago I wrote about how the S8 mikes are super sensitive, and can pick stuff up from way off in the distance.

And yesterday I wrote about how, when they're confused by wind, and don't know what to focus on... they'll switch focus at random... dropping out the background to focus on things nearby... and then randomly amplifying things in the distance to sound as if they're much closer.

Tonight, as I write at 9PM, I'm waiting for the wind to pick up, so I can do a new test recording with the S8 smack in between two key chimes, only three feet apart. The theory is that there'll be one in each ear, and both will stay in focus, even with the wind.

--<>--

I didn't come to the realization I should do it that way until I was done writing last night's entry.

But earlier in the evening, I had put the S8 out to record... still ten feet away from the wind chimes. I started that recording at sunset and left it go until 30 minutes after dusk.

I didn't think it would be worth it to listen to that recording, because I already knew the wind chimes wouldn't be any good. But today, I had some down time, an I listened through it anyway.

And there was an extremely bizarre, twenty minutes, where those confused mikes were just cycling through, and juxtaposing all kinds of crazy shit that was going on... because it was a saturday night in June.

It opens and closes with firworks, and there are fireworks here and there in the middle. But the focus changes from dogs barking, to total silence and just the wind chimes, to party music, to people singing with no party music, to cop sirens and speeders, back to silence and wind chimes...

It was like an acid trip, fever dream!

There's one chilling moment where all you can hear is an angry speeding car, and a girl shouting for her mom, over and over!

They're from two different parts of the soundscape, but the mikes brought them both into focus and muted everything else... like the algorithm wanted to make some deep artistic statement about the brutality of existence, or something.


------------{=0=}------------

I knew I had to save that 18 or so minutes as a FLAC and upload it, but I couldn't just bill it as another wind test, because it was something much weirder.

So I decided that I'm going to start a series of shorter, weirder ambient recordings like this one.

I'll have to start taking the S8 out to weird locations to get them, too.

--<>--

And the first idea was to call this new series, "Butt Dial," because butt dials are always these unexpected moments out of time where you're suddenly listening to an incomprehensible ambient soundscape that has no context, and no explanation.

But, as I worked up the graphical template, it started to seem like, "Butt Dial," was too comical a name. People might expect them to be funny, when instead they should be weird or mysterious.

I tried, "Zone Dial," in a Twilight Zone font, but that made it seem like they would all be spooky and chilling. And that wasn't exactly what I was going for either.

So, in the end, I just settled for calling the new series, "Dial," with a fairly neutral font, and a green color palette, rather than the blue for normal Snoozefest stuff.

------------{=0=}------------

Dial, I think is a good term. It conjures up the telephone dial, the television dial, the radio dial... the dials of the universal constants, that physicists talk about... and like, the wheel of fortune, and the roulette wheel.

Just a random grab bag of soundscapes, out of context, and confusing. I want all the dial recordings to make you go, "Where the hell am I? What's going on here?"

But you can't stop listening.

That's the idea anyway.

And this is something I can keep up year round... if I can figure out enough weird places to go with the S8.

------------{=0=}------------

The Dial tracks are each gonna have a phone-number style designation. This first one is, 122-0618.

The prefix is the number of the series and the year. This is 122, the next will be 222, then 322, 422, etc.

The last four are just the month and day. 0618 is just June 18th.

And then they have a title, like any other track.

This first DIAL track is called, "Spiritual War & Party Zone."

°¦}

SnoozeFest · Spiritual War & Party Zone