From the Tank to the Studio

I have been scavenging reverberant spaces for a while now. Old warehouses, tunnels, silos and odd places fascinate me for their acoustic and their vibe. Playing in a place where walls listen and answer, where ceiling and ground become sonic partners, is one of my favorite way to trip out. So when my friend Isak Goldschneider sent me this article about the Tank Center for Sonic Arts, an old water cistern turned into a performance and recording facility in Colorado, I thought I might as well give it a try and book a trip there. Film maker Elysha Poirier and Sound Magician Blaise Borboën-Léonard have joined me in this adventure. Soon enough we were driving from Denver airport to Rangely, a tiny little city 5 hours away, in the middle of the high desert, slaloming through mountains, our jaws dropped on the floor at the sight. Then, from the town to the Tank. A strange and heart warming sight. You know you'll dive deep when you see it, wait until you enter this holy space, house of a 40 minutes long reverb. Outside, everything is silent - it's the desert. Inside, it sounds like 12 cathedrals being played all at once. Sound swirls, travels, flies, rumbles, echoes, harmonizes. Some harmonics become so present that it's like the space has decided to play this particular pitch. We recorded and shot for 4 days there, dreaming from one magic moment to the next. Listening. Watching, hearing, seeing. Sound like generous honey inside, silence like the most precious gift ever outside. Nature. Then the story of the Tank itself: worth a read! My understanding is that the Tank knew from the get go it had a higher destiny :)

Now we are back in Montreal, at Studio Makina. Exchanges and sessions with Blaise Borboën-Léonard are making my sonic fantaisies come true. I can't wait to share them with you. In the meantime, this excerpt is a raw mix, a sonic blink from the 8 microphones carefully listening...