3:18 minutes (3.2 MB) :: Download audio file

Experimental glitch, soundscape of dying harddisks.
- Vocals by AT&T Labs virtual speech
- All sounds by failuring storage hardware from Fujitsu, Hitachi/IBM, Maxtor, Quantum, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital

Just an exercise in creating music from non-musical sources. In this case I used a bunch of clips from various harddisk failures, mainly stuttering motors and stepping head noises.
For the intro part I mixed them in their original states. In the second (lyrical) part I had to pitch them to obtain decent material for constructing melodies and chords. Of course it would have been too much work to process and insert each single note manually by editing the waveforms. Instead I created my own soundfont, based on the particular noises. This way I could execute the composing in a MIDI editor and render the notes using the soundfont.

Lyrics:
1.
what's going on, dude?
your machine is so rude
it's not in the mood
it aint gonna boot
2.
droning like a skep
it breaks step by step
oh poor old chap
this hardware is crap
Refrain:
oops - harddrive failure
why do you call me an untrue disk?
in pleasure we did wallow
is our relation on a risk?
will you still love me tomorrow?
3.
no backups in addition?
that was no good decision
i'm having now a vision
there is no more partition