I’ve written instrumentals for two videos I recorded last year when a heavy storm battered the Norfolk coast. Both were filmed in Cromer, a beautiful town on the North Norfolk Coast as heavy storms were hitting much of Britain. I’ve been going there for years to watch the waves, but this was the wildest the sea had been in sixty years.
The video footage is often shaky and erratic ; it was shot on an iPhone 5 in a howling gale, and for some of it I was leaning out of a window to take the shot.
The first piece is a piano improvisation I recorded against the film while testing out ideas. My original plan had be been to slow the waves to half their speed, and create a sound track using strings and electronics, but nothing I tried seemed to work as well. Showing the waves against a melancholy musical backdrop seems to give the illusion that they are at a slower speed, I like the balletic grace it lends them.
For second video, I went for something more turbulent and tortured. The sounds are very bright ; it might be rather harsh on cheap speakers.
I’ll write a more detailed update on the various things I’ve been up to shortly.