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This artist uses Half-Life to generate experimental dance musicA right old rave!
A right old rave!
Graham Dunning has done songs and live performances for a few years now, and he’s about to release a whole album of it. Which I guess is why he’s treating us to Twitch streams like this:
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[n.b. I’ve since replaced the archived stream with a highlights video cos Twitch killed the full one]
That was cracking, that. Often he just playedHalf-Life, letting the music be whatever came out when he played. Other times, he consciously performed. My favourite part was when he paused to stare at a skull, flicking his flashlight on and off to play vocal samples that became stuttering, almost gasping, while distant environmental beats quietly ticked on a steady rate. Another triumph for environmental storytelling’s love of skulls. The resonance cascade is cracking too.
There’s a few elements to Dunning’s performance. Ambient sounds loop constantly, making theBlack Mesacomplex functions a giant sequencer you move through. Scripted sequences become intense little composed parts too. Dynamic elements come in through what Gordon and all the other characters get up to. The environment provides steady beats, different elements dropping in and out as he moves around. Footsteps thump and crash drums. NPCs generate their own little dynamic performances. Fights bring brief intense moments. The way Half-Life aggressively distorts sounds in certain spaces works nicely too.
All this is leading up to the launch of his album Panopticon, which is outon Bandcampthis Saturday. Dunning hassaidhe hadn’t planned to release his Half-Life soundpack “but may look into it.”
He’s put a few Panopticon samples up, including this pleasantly simple song built from firing a gun turret in a corridor. That’s just the background sounds, the gun, and different instruments coming in depending on the materials the bullets hit.
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So simple. So magic.
You can read more about Dunning and his other workon his website.
I can’t let this end without mentioningDevil Daggers, the FPS which comes out the box sounding like an unearthly gig of grinding teeth, roars, and warbling. Proper lovely, that. And hot tip: if you view a replay slowed way, way, way down you’ve got several hours of rumbling ambient music. Love thatDevil Daggers.
Ta to my pal Pat Ashe for pointing out this stream.
