A few words about experiments in terror #6 -- sam shihad…

I hope you get a chance to sit down and listen to this. I know the majority of people would chalk it down to being boring. Just one long hum. But listen in the first one for the glissandi that keep reoccuring (both up and down). There is movement going on. Crackles…

I have always wanted to write a drone piece, but was scared like a first time offender in his first night in prison. I was seeking for a way to allow a sense of development…composition. It took me forever how to find out. I had to underplay it. Have things really develop on the microstructure, but in the most blantant way…the macrostructure…

little things=big things…

A melody finally forms, a kind of B theme to the crackles, but one that turns out to be the ONE that everyone hums after a movie…a really good one…like Jaws. It takes 17 minutes, but it’s there. Singing its little ass off. Like Steve Perry (from Journey…”I’m forever yours…faithfully.”).

…anyways…

Sam Shihad was a neighbor of mine. A really obnoxious Rosite (a carpetbagger who pretends to be an austinite…goes to all the “austin places”, listens to “austin music”, loves central market, austin city limits, and most of all…the early, non-smoking show at la zona rosa…ie…rosites) that worked at home. He did work for video games, or helped design credits, or ads, or something. Anyways, his office had an adjoining wall with our bedroom. He would play his video games, with his speakers against the wall. Now…I like video games too. But they can be rather repetitive, and hearing only the bass of said video games can be very annoying. My wife, Cathy, works a very hectic schedule (doing suicide hotline, no less (!)). She would come home and try to sleep and hear his crappy video game bass. We asked him to consider who the sound affected are room and he wasn’t much help…just his smug Rosite self. Yet…we could not even complain, as he was playing it a reasonable volume, it was just the bass.

…anyways…

On the day we moved out from our apartment I wrote this music for sam. It was to consist of long subharmonic drones and transitions. Ones that could be soothing on its own, but one that could be of terror to the victim on the other side of the wall. The music was played at a reasonable volume against the wall, but the bass of the sound (which was almost all of it) was amplified by the wall. Causing a quite distressing rumble. This experiment in terror was intended to be played for 24 hours on May 31 st, 2000. However, only 15 hours were able to played until we were finally shut down. It was still, in my mind, a victory. And here is a moment of that victory…33:17 moments of pure victory…

…enjoy…

g. brent fariss

July 30, 2000

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