Black Silk

Black Silk
The mask at the end of the world, speaking only to you.

Artist Location: Massachusetts

PARTICIPATION

June 5th Audioscapes

Awake Audioscape
When they all dance.

The Silent Call Audioscape
Standing far away from where you stand now.

With this side project, I intend to use sound design as a method of creating locations sonically. What I mean by this is that I have found that sound is one of the most vivid forms of transportation I have ever seen. Depending on the complicated weave of sounds, effects, and playing techniques (sometimes just pressing a single key on a keyboard) that I use, I find that I can create the scenes I want to create. I find this similar to film scoring, where the music more or less represents what is happening in the film. With the visual aspect removed, I try to recreate what has been “lost.” I find this to be, in some ways (not many, that’s why “Black Silk” is a side project), much more liberating than music, as there is no structure to abide by, no motive behind it besides that of moving the listener from one location to the other. This is not to say that music cannot do this. In fact, the musical aspect of this project, I believe, is what strengthens it and gives it clarity. Noise can achieve the same goals, but I believe that musical content has its own voice, a belief that is probably influenced by my love of video game and film soundtracks, both of which are usually musical. I view all of music this way, in fact. All good music has a “vibe” or “atmosphere” or “aesthetic.” To me they are roughly the same thing, and if the music is devoid of that, I cannot enjoy it. However, music can create locations just as well as any other form of sonic art, whether through melody, rhythm, lyrical content, the combination of the three, and the endless other components of music. I prefer to state the atmosphere a different way. I only try to create this from sound. In a sense, I think of sound art as minimalism, where I take away everything that I don’t need, a practice that may or may not allow more focus to be directed towards the niches and details of any given sound, rather than them working together as a whole.

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