AULUS-LES-BAINS
Improvisation-composition 9’25”
HEADPHONES PLEASE!
Recording in Aulus-les-Bains, France, August 2024. The piece asks us to consider the environments in which we live, the histories that have shaped our places. I recorded the hardanger d'amore live within an old bathhouse, where (presumably) women washed clothes, linens, anything. Sitting in this now defunct but cared for place, I imagined all the stories that were told under the peal of the church bells, the joys, sorrows, complaints, love. All that resonance of emotion thru voice, thru vibration that curated the space, the energy. I sat and listened and responded - to the (very microtonal) bells, to the occasional passing car, to the birds, and to the memories. Later, I added other sounds I recorded in the area - cow bells, vocal experiments in the original archaic town remains in the forest, owls in the evening thru my window, and water - the pristine, healing, clear water flowing from the mountains.
Hardanger d’amore, field recording / Sara Pajunen
