Diego Stocco - Music from a Dry Cleaner

Almost everyday, on my way to a local bakery, I walk in front of a dry cleaner shop. When their front door is open, I hear a lot of interesting sounds coming from their work equipment.

Eventually, the different mechanical and steam sounds sparked something in my mind, so one day I asked the owners if I could record a piece of music by using their machines as musical instruments.

I used a puff iron, press and dry cleaning machines, a washer, clothes hangers, and a bucket full of soap. The bass and lead sounds were created from the buzzing tones coming from the conduits and engines. There are no additional sounds from any traditional or electronic instruments. Enjoy!

This is a Press Machine. It usually presses clothes, but in this case I was playing rhythmic parts with it. The lid makes a nice mechanical sound. The pedals and levers on top control the amount of steam.

A detail of the levers on the top of the press machine.

This is a Puff Iron. It makes different type of steam sounds.

Here I was recording a series of buzzing tones from the conduits. I used them for the bass and lead sounds on the second half of the piece.

I found out that I could tune these metallic hangers by cutting them in different spots. They make a very cool sound when miked really close. I was playing them with chopsticks.

I used my customized stethoscope to record the sound of a plastic bucket filled with soap. It's an improved version of the one I built for Music From a Tree.

Here I was playing the inside of a washer - it makes a nice round sound!

For those of you into technical details, this was my recording equipment: API pre/eq/comp (512c, 550b, 527), Apogee Ensemble, ProTools9, MacBookPro, Røde mikes (NT2A, NT5, NTG-2).