AND, 4: Restyn Park

Back in 2012 I stopped in Hanwood while driving home from Griffith and discovered Restyn Park. I'd been recording playgrounds in Leeton for my For 100 Years album and was looking for interesting equipment, so the circular shapes on the metal climbing frame caught my ear.

Later that year I returned to Restyn Park to record the playground. Images were used in an article in Audio Technology but I didn't do anything else with the recordings because I was a bit over manipulating playgrounds. I got back into it in 2013, at the close of Leeton's centenary when I screened work around town, but the files for Restyn Park remained on my desktop.

Earlier this year a Disquiet Junto asked participants to share a technique and I thought to use the sounds from Hanwood to share my Parktronica, IDM made from playgrounds using contact microphones and Ableton Live.

There are a few subtle differences between the initial version of the song Restyn Park in the video above and the AND album version below. A lot of lower frequencies were cut out and an effect on a buss adds a squeak like an old rusty swing, which is actually a sound I'm very fond of and appears on a couple of albums now.