Mountain Hike 2012 Post 3

On the way down “Åreskutan” the wind began to accelerate and the fog thickened. As a guidepost, there were a lot of weather-beaten red steel pipes drilled into the rock. Some of these pipes had small holes in them that induced a flute-like sound when the wind blew through them.
At the beginning I did not understand that the sounds came from the pipes so for a long time I walked around and wondered what these droney abstract sounds which created an even more eerie feeling in the barren landscape was.

When I realized it was the pipes that developed them I took my Aquarian H2 hydrophone and lowered it a few feet down the pipe and really hoped that it could capture the sound, and it really did!

I think this recording is the most intresting and best recording I made this mountain hike. Both because it was so unexpected and for the fasination of how melodic and complex sounds the nature can create.

[Recorded with a Aquarian H2a hydrophone conected to a Marantz PMD661 audio recorder]

PS. If you liked what you just heard keep your ears and eyes peeled for a cassette tape called “Fragments from a world that is no more” that I currently working on where these sounds are the base of the composition. D.S.

Mountain Hike 2012 Post 2

A one-day hike that we did was to climb the 1420 meters high mountain “Åreskutan” in the middle of the large ski resort of Åre.
We thought this would be an easy hike completed in 5-6 hours but the weather wasnt with us and it turned out to be a very struggling walk in heavy rain and hard wind.
But when we started walking from central Åre weather was fine apart from some light rain. After about two hours of walking we had come halfway up the mountain and it was time to pack up our liquid-gas stove and cook some lunch.
We found a shelter that we set ourselves in in order to get protection from the rain which had now begun to accelerate.
The sound of the wind and the rain that fell on the shelters tin roof was very intense so I decided to put a hydrophone on the roof to capture this complex and almost ghostly sound.
The recording turned out to be very raw and distorted. I really like it!

[Recorded with a Aquarian H2a hydrophone (in a contact mic adapter) conected to a Marantz PMD661 audio recorder]