Songs In Isolation II: Easing Restrictions

<p>Text from YouTube description box: &quot;Goodness! We&#39;re easing restrictions even though we&#39;re only JUST squeaking under that mystical 1.0 transmission rate! Looks like Australia&#39;s getting ready to feed people to the corporate machine, again. Whoopie!&quot;</p> <p>This piece draws on the use of language, voice, and layering from Mark Applebaum&rsquo;s series, <em>Three Unlikely Corporate Sponsorships</em> (2016). It was composed in response to the ill-timed easing of COVID-19 restrictions in June 2020 in Australia. At the time, I was shocked that the Australian government was choosing to ease restrictions given the lingering COVID-19 cases and my home country&rsquo;s government (New Zealand) response to COVID cases at that pandemic phase. I saw mixed reactions on social media, with some enthusiastic about returning to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; and others more cautious and skeptical.</p> <p>I stacked text layers in a word processor to form a score and performed each layer while recording. A low-quality headset microphone was used to record the voice to evoke the quality of an early computer conferencing call quality. The texts position on the page in the text score informed the pitch centre of each line&rsquo;s vocal takes. The audio was then processed with different effects to separate the layers sonically.</p> <p>The text was taken from themes I viewed on social media with regards to dieting (losing weight gained during lockdown), supermarket stock shortages, opinions on easing restrictions, and news conference snippets on social media as well as public news websites like the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC). Like Applebaum, I use the rhythm of speech and pitches that we employ in speech to shape the musical output. The text choices and movement from one section to the next are deliberately playful.</p>