Composing the music for "Chernobyl Diaries" gave me the opportunity to experiment with new playing techniques on my custom built instruments, as well as hybrid techniques on electric bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, zithers and percussions. The soundtrack evolves through sparse and abstract cues to more melodic ones, including very aggressive and atonal moment.
By axing a piano I was able to create very rich sounding accents that I used all across the score.
This particular piano has been through several stages of deconstruction, at first I used it in my "Dissonant Echoes" video, and later I took the keyboard to build the Bassoforte. Neverthless it's still a very useful instrument.
This is an 8 strings electric bass where I removed the 4 higher octave strings, to access each individual string with different tools and objects. Here I was pulling the lower strings up with a threaded bar and the same time bowing all the strings. I came up with this technique to create very eerie bowed sounds.
This is an old broken cello that due to some damages cannot be tuned up to the regular tuning. Because the strings are tuned much lower they produce a different type of overtones and harmonics, which I was also emphasizing by sliding a metallic bar across the finger board.
I found out that light bulbs can work as small resonant chambers and generate tuned frequencies when a microphone is passed through the glass. In order to open a hole in the glass I used a small flame torch.
By moving the microphone through the light bulb I was able to generate binaural beats and feedback sounds. Different light bulb sizes generated different pitches, which I further manipulated into melodic lines.
This is the Fence Bass, an instrument I built. It generates harsh sounding bowed sounds, the metallic plate can also be bowed and works particularly well to create metallic overtones.
This is the Experibass, an original instrument I built. It's a combination of a double bass, cello, viola and violin. With this instrument I performed as a Featured Soloist on the score of "Sherlock Holmes" and video games "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood" and "Assassin's Creed Revelations". The Experibass produces a rich a unique tone thanks to the additional resonating strings and custom tuning.
