RESONARIUM

88-year-old Vincenza Scarioli has been exploring the beauty of frequencies with her grandson, composer Michele Di Martino. Early last year, Michele began collecting vintage oscillators—devices once used to tune radio and television signals. At certain frequencies, they produce pure sine tones, which he started combining to experiment with atonal sounds and frequency beating. Working out of his grandmother’s 18th-century home, Michele had the idea to record her trying the machines. With her backg...

7-inch Vinyl Cube. Imagine if records were invented like this. Cubical playlists would be a part of our culture! (Music: Nou Cut - doooo)

What if water pollution had a voice? Marco Barotti’s kinetic sculptures react like real clams do – to changes in water quality. But instead of closing up, they produce an eerie drone melody, turning invisible pollution into something you can hear.

The Gravimorph Spindle is both satisfying and hypnotic sound object! It demonstrates the conversion of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy, producing unique sonic patterns as the elements descend along the channel. Beside having the intriguing audio experience I'm absolutely mesmerized by the strangely unintuitive motion part.

Contact microphones open entire new dimension of sonic perception usually unavailable for human hearing. This experience relies on piezo sensors that provide the access to very specific spectrum of vibrations usually propagating within hard environments. Capturing those hyper realistic sound textures helps sound designers and composers uncover new qualities of common objects.

The Sympathetic Nail Violin – an instrument tuned with a hammer! Each nail is a metal rod, and its length outside the wood defines the pitch. You bow just under the nail’s head with a rosined bow, producing a crystalline, flute-like sound. This one has three groups of sympathetic nails, which create extra resonance for each note. Some nails and strings don’t play directly — they resonate on their own or you can strike them for a drone chord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9nk7pqcGk&list=RDxo9nk7pqcGk&start_radio=1

Hiss, warmth, and pure nostalgia. Tape-driven ambient at its finest. Nuff said

"Soundtrack" (1969) is a short film by Barry Spinello, created without a camera by hand-painting both image and sound directly onto 16 mm film. Despite the film is beyond our understanding of mainstream and tries to be artsy - it incorporates pretty early developed principle of optical sound synthesis widely-known since the very beginning of the 20-th century. Check out the full artwork on YouTube!

A ghost in a flask. 👻 Using the classic “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion and an oscilloscope tube, the image inside the glass is controlled by sounds from a theremin-driven synthesizer.