Shipwrecked
To launch the Sounding the Collection sample pack from Powerhouse and Ableton, Jonnine, SOLLYY and Salamanda were commissioned to demonstrate how these sounds can be reimagined into music.
Jonnine Standish’s solo work dilates and deconstructs the damaged, sensual minimalism of her iconic, decade-plus collaboration alongside Nigel Yang in HTRK (2003–present). Skeletal rhythms slink and echo through dimly lit streets framed by fragments of guitar, bass, breath, keys, scrapes and haze, anchored by Standish’s narcotic nocturnal voice. The moods she conjures are lovelorn but oblique, between dream and coma, scenes glimpsed through fogged glass.
‘I was on the hunt for sounds that had a keepsake narrative to them or that felt like they had a soul being passed on from generation to generation.’
Interview
This is the first sample pack I've actually ever used to make my own music. I usually have a library of objects I've recorded myself and they all hold some kind of memory or nostalgia for me. I record a lot of keepsakes, like my grandfather's harmonica or my mother's pearl necklace, vintage cups and teapots, buttons, shells and old keyrings.
Only recently I discovered that my great-grandfather and grand uncles were EastEnders from London who made clocks and watches. So I started there. I thought there was some metaphor there of the clock, not only keeping time but also keeping the memory of some of my distant relatives. They had to think about keeping time so much. It was their livelihood. All of this made me feel quite emotional and romantic and nostalgic for these objects. One of the reasons I was really excited for this project was because I saw you had all these 18th century and 19th century clocks and chimes.
I kept the clocks as a time-making mechanism, but I didn't keep their rhythms. I actually cut the seconds ticking and recreated a whole new rhythm. So they still had their mechanical notion of keeping time but they're keeping to a new time that I've made up which is exactly how I value time in my real life.
The song uses the theme of the Cerberus, which was a half-sunken ship near where I grew up. I wanted to write a whimsical pop song. The genre would be under underwater pop.
The music box was quite an extended piece of music. I edited a loop and then I slowed it down and distorted it through Moog MF delay pedal. Then I threw it into a whole other grid of other guitar pedals. There was a reverb and a pitch shift – I haunted it out. I wanted it to feel uncomfortable but on repeat it actually became quite relaxing.
There's so much life in this sample pack and so much to explore that it could make you inspired to actually bring your own samples of life and your own field recordings into the mix. It could be a jumping off point to rediscover all the sounds in your everyday life again as if for the first time and out of context. The options are really endless to make these sounds completely your own.
Shipwrecked – Jonnine
Used Samples
In her track Shipwrecked, Jonnine used samples from seven objects in the Powerhouse collection. Here are the remainder, not listed above:
Artist
Jonnine Standish’s solo work dilates and deconstructs the damaged, sensual minimalism of her iconic, decade-plus collaboration alongside Nigel Yang in HTRK (2003–present). Skeletal rhythms slink and echo through dimly lit streets framed by fragments of guitar, bass, breath, keys, scrapes and haze, anchored by Standish’s narcotic nocturnal voice. The moods she conjures are lovelorn but oblique, between dream and coma, scenes glimpsed through fogged glass.
Sample Pack
Download
Sounding the Collection sample pack from Ableton for free and read more about the Ableton Project
Creative Commons
Non-commercial with Attribution and Attribution Share-Alike licenses. Both require attribution and have limited restrictions. Attribution should be given as Powerhouse.
Sounding the Collection
From an automaton bird cage, and an art deco clock to toy robots, tuning forks and steam engines, Sounding the Collection is a sonic archive from Powerhouse that brings objects sitting silent in the collection to audition.
The archive hosts over 100 recordings designed to be shared publicly inviting artistic interpretation and collaboration into the sonic archive. These recordings allow musicians, researchers, and sound designers globally to repurpose and interpret them via a ‘sample pack’ – potentially finding their way into sonic identities, movie soundtracks, foley, pop songs, and sound installations.
Powerhouse is working to fold sonic archives and sonic interpretation of the collection’s material culture. In addition to Sounding the Collection, the museum is host to a range of projects that activate and listens closely to its objects. This includes the Oscillations podcast series, collaborations with Research Fellows, and performances with collection instruments.
Powerhouse Collection
Powerhouse is custodian to more than half a million objects of national and international significance and is considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in Australia.
Research Scholars
Powerhouse Museum operates an annual program to support research of the collection, museum practice, learning and public outcomes.