Azad (2002)

(recording still missing)

Azad was created for an anti-war CD compilation that, to the best of my knowledge, never happened. Following are some notes about the piece, from correspondence, to the producer of the CD, who will remain nameless.

anyway, the piece is called azad, which is supposed to be arabic but h.p. lovecraft actually made it up, to describe the sound of insects at night which were thought to be demons screaming. lovecraft imagining the superstitons of the middle east reminds me of the ignorance and suppositions that currently have us on the brink of war. the piece also sounds like what i would imagine demons screaming in the night would sound like…

the sound source for the piece is two recordings of children screaming, time-stretched so that we are able to hear the timbre of the human voice and the change in intensity between gasps but not the actual immediate impact of the screams. that again reminds me of the war… we are able to abstractly imagine the sort of casualties that this war would bring on, but i doubt we would be able to handle comforting the dead and dying. the atlantic ocean is a comfortable psychological buffer, making the actual consequences of war seem not-so-real.

incidentally, the children in the recordings are mine, and i did not torture them to make the recordings. my daughter christina cried in the bath when she got shampoo in her eyes… and my son august, while taking a warm bath, decided to dump cold water on his head. that one is hilarious. and yes, i do often have a minidisc recorder with me when bathing my children.

the piece is about 8.30 long… which may be too long for the comp, in which case if you need to remove it that's OK. it's very very quiet, there are parts where it is almost completely inaudible.

i'm happy that i'm able to contribute to a compilation based around this cause which is one i care deply about, and very grateful to you for putting it together. i have been continuously writing letters to the president, our senators and representative on the issue… i'm not optimistic but am feeling that the peace movement is mobilizing… the US had a lot of rallies against the war in the last few months; supposedly the peace movement during vietnam took two years to get this big…!

as far as what you should put on the CD or liner notes put

Azad, Alex Keller, 2002