Soft Ash

Soft Ash
  1. Soft Ash - origins
  2. The White Death; part 1
  3. MIC
  4. The Plague Wind
  5. Chernobyl
  6. The White Death part 2
  7. Fragments

 

Voice - Hulda Lange
Actors - Adam Joseph, Hulda Lange, Gisela Sawatsky, Ali Verhagen, Peter Hardie
Additional Electrical Footage - Ed Bonderenko

Historical reports taken from Dr Kurt Paterson's "Ventilation, Stagnation, Inversions and Case Histories" Lecture (Michigan Technological University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Thanks to Andrew Yencken, Robyn Padvlich, Andrew McLennan, John Crawford, Alistair Riddell, Francois Tetaz, Ryoji lkeda, Bernhard Gunter, Larry Polansky Telstra, High Voltage Laboratories & BKS

Treatment 1.1 courtesy CCI, Japan. Originally composed for Ryoji Ikeda's "Statics" compilation, 1995
Treatments 1.2 - 1.4 appear courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Originally commissioned by "The Listening Room",  October, 1996

Recorded at P3 Facility 
Mastered by Francois Tetaz
Photographs by Paul Nadalin 

1.1 Soft Ash - origins
Unidentified historical source

 The musical approach isolationist
Scored for filtered atmospheric recordings, electronics & voice
Recommended listening volume: medium low

1.2 The White Death part 1
The location - Meuse Valley, Belgium (1930) 
The scenario - From 1-5 December, an intense fog occupied the heavily industrialized Meuse Valley in Eastern Belgium
Several hundred persons had respiratory attacks beginning on the 4th, and 63 persons died on the 4th and 5th. On December 6 the fog dissipated and the respiratory difficulties ceased.
Pollutants - Suspected sulphur dioxide conversion to sulphuric acid and fluorine compounds.

The musical treatment - Electro-Acoustic
Sound sources dominated by (processed) spoken reports on the incident and radio interference Recommended listening volume: medium / medium low

1.3 MIC 
The location Bhopal, India (1984)
The scenario - Shortly after midnight tons of methyl isocyanate were released from a storage tank at Union Carbide, spreading as a fog-like cloud over a large highly populated area. More than 2000 direct deaths reported
Pollutant - MIC

The musical treatment - Post-Industrial Ambient
Sounds constructed predominantly from tape hiss from badly mastered recordings of Indian music
Recommended listening volume: medium / medium high

1.4 The Plague Wind
The location - London (1871)
The scenario - One of London s renowned fogs, killing 1,150 people. A stationary anti-cyclone induced fog. Temperature was near freezing and fog density was enhanced by many small particles in the air. Smoke concentrations averaged nearly five times normal.
Pollutants - deaths blamed on synergistic effect of fine particulate and sulphur dioxide

The musical treatment - Romantic
Scored for half valve trumpet, trombone muitiphonics, violin, cello, treated piano and celeste. Tuned to Tibetan and Workmeister scales.
Recommended listening volume: medium low

1.5 Chernobyl
The location - Chernobyl, former USSR (April 26. 1986)
The scenario - Shortly after midnight an accident at the nuclear power plant saw the explosion-like release of a pollutant cloud that reached heights 2000m. It contaminated Finland, northern Sweden and Norway,  the Alps and the northern part of Greece, primarily through wet deposition.
Pollutants - Cs-137 and I-131

The musical treatment - Rhythmic Minimalism (with sporadic ambient techno/glitch residuals, and an unnecessary flair for hyperbole.
Scored for tuned bongos, toms, plucked cello, Russian news footage and artifacts
Recommended listening volume: medium high

1.6 The White Death part 2
The location - Meuse Valley, Belgium (1930)
The scenario - From 1-5 December, an intense fog occupied the heavily industrialized Meuse Valley in Eastern Belgium
Several hundred persons had respiratory attacks beginning on the 4th, and 63 persons died on the 4th and 5th. On December 6 the fog dissipated and the respiratory difficulties ceased.
Pollutants - Suspected sulphur dioxide conversion to sulphuric acid and fluorine compounds.

Treatment - Conceptually inaccurate ambience/falsified atmospheric
Scored for trumpet, field recordings of thunder, low strings and recycled part 1 footage
Recommended listening volume: medium low

1.7 Fragments
 The location - Monnongahela Rice Valley, October 25-31, 1948
The facts- 20 persons died, 17 within 14 hours on October 31
Pollutants - sulfur dioxide, particulate and carbon monoxide in Donora vicinity

Treatment - organ
Scored for filtered pumpkin scrapings sourced from the Shinjuku Thief "Witch Hammer" Recommended listening volume: medium low / low

horizontal rule