The Upper Strata, Found Sounds in Music

The season is changing and fog is rolling in. The Upper Strata rolled into the Radio X studio with their new album "Fog". Recorded in Portland (OR), Basel, Norway and Spain, Johnny and Regula Sanchez gathered sounds on their travels to create the work.

Collecting weird sounds on a cell phone and stringing them together to create beats? Yes, Johnny and Reg call it the urban orchestra approach. Reg had an app on her phone that let her record sounds and pull them into a sequencer to create a kind of drum kit with found sounds. She sampled a beat based around the sound of an ice cube in a glass in a bar in Barcelona. The song was initially called "Negroni" (after the drink) and was later renamed "Solace". On that same trip the duo also collected sounds from a broken intercom and anything that sounded interesting. It is almost like taking pictures of a place, except you use a different sense to recall a moment or a place.

On a particularly cold stormy night in Norway, the duo set the microphone on the deck of the boat house to capture the sound of the choppy water sloshing on the docks. The result was an intriguing kind of Balinese gamelan tone, both watery and metallic. It is woven into the layers of the song "Fickle Fjord" and Johnny says: "Listening to it immediately transports me to the boathouse on Veafjorden."

Listen to Part 1 of the interview, where The Upper Strata talk about their beginnings, the new album, and the song "Fickle Fjord".

Listen to Part 2 of the interview, where The Upper Strata talk about chasing found sounds, their printed companion to the new album, an upcoming US tour, and the song "Solace".

Our music theme, unsurprisingly, was found sounds in songs. We played:

Public Service Broadcasting - White Star Liner

The Upper Strata - Fickle Fjord

M.I.A. - Paper Planes

Matmos - Breaking Bread

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows

The Upper Strata - Solace

Nick Thayer - Mind Control