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It crackles and it rustles. In this 6-week audiovisual KISD project – initiated by designer and music producer Stefanie Grawe aka GRAY – 22 design students dedicated themselves to the love of lo-fi music and composed their own song. For this they dealt intensively both theoretically and practically with the associated production techniques, analyzed popular pieces of music and experimented with different sounds. Of course, they also designed a visual identity in the form of a cover artwork and music video. All results are now presented on this website.


ACID RAIN – UNTITLED

Jakob Troll, Tim Klünker & Eradzh Yakubov

A synthesis of ,80s industrial‘ grime 90s breakbeat techno rave, 2000s UK post-jungle dance music all put through a prism of not-quite-real-nostalgia underpinned by hollowed out breakbeats, decayed noise and acridic, rusted static with a sheen of gothic ennui, haunted by the hollow promises of neoliberal hegemony & disappointment. NO FUTURE.

SYNTHESIS :: HAUNTOLOGICAL RAVE


MOODS
– Unsettling
– Murky
– Intense
– Paranoid

SOUND PALLETE & GENRE INFLUENCES
– Ambient
– Noise
– Industrial
– Garage
– Jungle
– Rave

METHODS
– Use of field recordings
– Breakbeat/Off-beat percussion
– Layering of sound textures

REFERENCES
– Burial
– Raime



MUSIC PRODUCTION

SOUND & ARRANGEMENT

„In the first meeting with my group we exchanged ideas about what reference songs we know that have a gritty, lo-fi, UK garage sound, through which we know what sound image we are trying to create. We exchanged ideas about what is important for such a song and what ideas each of us has to add to it musically. We started by creating our own sound library by each recording a few field recordings. We then loaded them onto my laptop and divided them into tonal, percussive and other elements in order to keep track of them and make it possible to work quickly and efficiently. When we had finalised the appropriate sounds, we started to build a basic beat. I started with the basic elements of kick, snare and hats and later moved further and further away from the conventional rhythm elements and started to give the whole thing its own character with rhythmic noise carpets. When the first demo was finished, which until then had few melodic parts, we recorded the vocal, which can be heard almost in the whole song, over the instrumental. It was very impulsive, but we liked it so much that we still have it in the final version. The song developed organically over time. I still had ideas about what could be done and I always compared those with the initial idea and the attributes that the song should have for us and based on that I decided whether to leave something in or take something out.

MIXING

Mixing was a difficult process. Especially because I ended up with a lot of layers. To keep an overview, I started to label and categorise all the tracks. Assigning colours to the individual elements also helped me to orientate myself quickly. To get a first feeling for which elements have which importance in the track, I made a rough mix. I started with a loud drum element and let all the other drum elements slowly thread in one after the other until I reached the point where I thought the volumes were well matched. At this point, I was still looking for a lot of guidelines and rules that tell me exactly how loud or how quiet certain elements have to be. But then I realised that mixing is also something very subjective and individual. When I had the rough mix ready, I listened to the song on different speakers and showed it to some music-affine friends, whose opinions I wrote down. At the same time, I started to work on the finer details, such as further effects. For this, I accessed the reference songs again and tried to find out which effects are to be heard and in which they are to be heard above all. How did I adjust the delay and reverb to have a suitable spatiality? So I created several busses in which I put a long reverb and a very short reverb, which I then mixed to my taste on the individual 'tracks. Same with the delay.“ - Jacob



ARTWORK

Packaging & cassette tape
„Our idea for the cover art and overall packaging was to counterpose the sombre, doom-y sound palette of the track with bright yet aggressive contrasting colours. The angularity and clashing of various shapes and patterns is employed to mirror the percussive patterns of the music, while the use of overlays and half-layers is a reference to the hyper-referentiality of the track itself as an amalgamation of various musical styles such as 90s and 2000s garage, hardcore and drone and techno. The eventual format of a cassette tape as well as the overall aesthetic are connected to these musical genres and attendant aesthetics.“ – Eradj

Video







„Since one of the main concepts of our project is ,Hauntology‘, it was obvious to me to include this in the conception of the video. Hauntology describes the use of elements from the historical and cultural past. A large part of our track consists of audio samples that we recorded in old industrial plants and run-down houses. So I thought it was appropriate to pick up on these places in the video and film the material there. I filmed with a camcorder both POV and static and with zoom. I tried to create a nostalgic atmosphere with past film techniques, such as slow, static zooms, which also does justice to the oppressive and gloomy mood of the track. The images of overgrown industry and abandoned, destroyed houses have a certain post apocalyptic effect, which should underline the mysterious and bitter sentiment of the track. Additionally, through a friend of Jakob's, we had the opportunity to use the costume of a bird figure for some shots. These provided more variety in the video and also underlined the mysterious and dark effect of the overall work. In post production, the black and white look of the video was very important to me in order to create a certain nostalgia. Through noisy VHS effects I let the ghostly, creepy from the Hauntology concept flow into it. To give the video some variety I used certain other effects. I deliberately left some shots long to give the impression of a homemade ,home video‘ a la ,Blairwitch Project‘.“ - Tim
© KISD / Image & Motion
SS 2022