Name: Gralimba by Dr. don Ath - Vol. IX.
Duration: 9 min 3 s
Description: We were inspired by the simplicity of the kalimba and the beauty of its sound. We took half a dozen kalimbas with pickups and started playing them. We chopped up the recorded sound and started kneading it with a granular synth and some tape delay effects, and then we baked out a new instrument for the lost generations: the gralimba.

When a door closes in front of someone, another one opens somewhere in the same second.  Slowly squeaking. Somewhere in our world or in another corner of the multiverse.  We see doors as a metaphor for human destinies, for possibilities. No one has ever really asked the doors what they think of humans. The sigh of doors is their squeak. When they are content with our fate, they do not squeak. Doors start to creak when they have something to say about the person using them. Metal doors, church gates, front doors, plastic bathroom doors all read our lives and believe me, they all have an ironclad opinion of us. They speak their minds with a thick squeaking sound, opening and closing and singing to us, to us, about who we are.

The SoundHunter Project

Behind Squeaky Doors

Cabbage planers, in Hungarian Káposztagyaluk. In the old days, cabbage was cut by hand with a sharp knife. Cabbage pickling was a communal event, 4-5 neighbours from the village would gather in a kitchen and slice the cabbage there. To process larger quantities, the women used cabbage planers, which were a factory product. The first manual cabbage planers were made by wheelwright craftsmen, and the slicing knife, for example, was made from a scythe blade. Listen to the interesting sounds that the canon of cabbage planers can make.

Sonic of Objects

Cabbage planers - Káposztagyaluk, Act. I.

Granular Up Your Mind

Cabbage planers, in Hungarian Káposztagyaluk. The 21st century generation of cabbage planers live in an imaginary chamber where it is always dimly lit because the king of the cabbage planers decreed it so. This is Gyalooland. Three million planers live in total darkness, they are the ones who always side with the king because they can't see in the darkness up to their noses, anything can be planed on them. And the other 5 million cabbage planers in the chamber are completely divided, they revile each other in the darkness, so they can never unite against the powerful planer king. In Gyalooland, there is an opposition to the king in parliament, but they always get a big cabbage from the king, so they never get to play their part. We can listen to the singing of those who live in the dimness of the chamber, sometimes the voices of those who live in the darkness are heard, sometimes only the music of the dimness is heard.

Cabbage planers - Káposztagyaluk, Act. II.

We went to play a little music in the city tunnel, and found lots of awesome and wonderful sounds. Again, we chopped, chewed and minced the sounds we collected and ended up with this.

Signs from the tunnel

Signs From The Tunnel

We were inspired by the simplicity of the kalimba and the beauty of its sound. We took half a dozen kalimbas with pickups and started playing them. We chopped up the recorded sound and started kneading it with a granular synth and some tape delay effects, and then we baked out a new instrument for the lost generations: the gralimba.

Gralimba

Many people think that noise is death, but it's not, silence is much more deadly. It is the small noises that fill the space around us and help us to enjoy the small pleasures of a life lived among millions of dead objects. So we need to appreciate the little noises carefully.  And loud noises need to be dealt with in their place, just as we deal with maddening silence. Life is fleeting, noise is constant, silence is disappearing...

Strange Habits Of Noise

We bought a soundbox. You know, it's one of those crates that's contact-miked up and you can rub all sorts of things against it and bang and pull and push and it makes all sorts of weird noises. We took it out into the city forest and made some recordings. It was a great party. Frici wasn't there, of course we all missed him. Then we woke up and it turned out that we were imagining things, maybe there was too much alcohol and we didn't record the sounds we wanted to record at all. But the wind was really blowing terribly and the soundbox was working perfectly...

Windy Mood From The Soundbox

Abyss

I hear the sound of angels singing beautifully and somehow very earthly.

Angel Island

UdieNnx - BROKEN (SUPER SLOWED)

Listen to my other volumes as well:

soundcloud.com/drdonathvol8/tracks
soundcloud.com/soundhuntervol1/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol7/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol6/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol5/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol4/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol3/tracks
soundcloud.com/drdonathvol2/tracks

Dr. don Ath is a Hungarian sonicinstaller, sound artist, lawyer and journalist, founder of SynthXLoop Audio Arts.
Since 2020, his sonic installations can be heard mainly in art exhibitions. He regularly works on request with experimental visual artists, advises as a lawyer on copyright law and is legal advisor to several art societies.

Gralimba

Dr. don Ath - Vol. IX.

Related tracks