Echolocation

"I love the recording of bats in a cave because it’s a reminder that heritage isn’t just about monuments and structure, but about life and the continuation of both humans and animals to exist within ancient landscapes. As an artist who uses a lot of convolutional reverb in my work, I love the idea of taking a huge natural space and augmenting that natural reverb into something otherworldly. 

"To make the composition, I wanted to create a sense of movement, so I used delays that travel within the stereo field and also manipulated the panning of the recording itself to wander about. I have memories of seeing fruit bats in the Seychelles at dusk, and the wonderful smell of guava in the air as they fed in the trees. It’s a time when I felt extremely calm and alive amongst the stresses of my life at the time. Both nature and music and essential to my mental wellbeing. 

"I’m currently working as my alter ego Elim Rae with film maker and writer Joe French on more traditional songs. These have their roots in wellbeing, healing from trauma and the joy of existing in nature. I used some guitar harmonics Joe played for one of our tracks to suggest the pings of echo location within the expanse of the bat cave. I loved the idea of pulling threads of another collaboration into this one, to enhance the sense of connectedness with my experience of the word."

Ellora Caves reimagined by Bone Music.

———————

This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.

Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage