Circuit Bent Casio Played in Silo Number 5

On a whim I thought it would be fun to play the little piece from the modded Casio through the Silophone, located in downtown Montreal.

The Silophone is an interesting thing: essentially it is an abandoned grain silo, outfitted with microphones and speakers, with an internet connection. The idea is to play pieces in the grain silo, and take advantage of the natural acoustics and reverberations that colour the sound. The internet connection takes this experiment one step further: it allows home users from around the globe to upload their audio and play it back to themselves through the Silophone.

To hear the modded Casio through the Silophone, visit the site, click the 'play the silophone' tab, and find the track by Faunaflage, posted on March 1st (Faunaflage is a project name I am working under right now).

Bear in mind that the Silophone uses RealPlayer, which is easily the worst file player possible (though one of the most common, internationally). Also, take note that it will take about 1 minute or so for the sound to come back to you. It may, in fact seem like nothing is actually happening, but I can confirm it does work. I think sometimes you have to wait for other files to stop playing first, too.

I thought this was an interesting experiment. All the sharp trebles in the piece are muted, and the thick, glitchy organ is rounded off and warmed up considerably. Also it is a very cool thing, to hear your stuff played at some remote industrial location downtown. Playing it back once I heard some random dude in the building talking. The unexpected happenstance of an experiment like this.

Give it a try. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

(photos provided by the Shearwood photo essay in The Reservoir section)