Grand River - Tuning the Wind

A Closer Listen

Those familiar with Grand River‘s All Above – one of our top electronic releases of 2023 – may be surprised at the timbre of Tuning the Wind.  But Aimée Portioli has always been about more than electronics.  Tuning the Wind is a grand experiment in which the artist records and adjusts the sound of the wind to imitate instruments, while adjusting instruments to imitate the sound of the wind.  The resulting 36-minute work, created as an installation piece, offers a meditation on a sound that isn’t a sound; as Portioli points out, the wind itself is silent, heard only through the surfaces with which it makes contact.

Few people have ever heard wind “sound” like this, but if it did, one would be riveted.  As Portioli writes, “Sometimes the wind howls; at other times, it sings or whistles, shifting from a gentle murmur to an angry roar.”  The recording begins in a gentle drone, like a subterranean hum.  The dual tuning of synthesizer and wind creates an overlapping space in which sonic assumptions are challenged; only when the first recognizable notes arrive does one make a distinction between nature and technology.  A series of rustles and crackles arrives like a fire; the storm, if one can call it that, is picking up steam.  Birds express their discontent.  Aptly named wind instruments join the conversation, and every line becomes blurred.

Grand River underlines the fact that when wind interacts with surfaces, it creates notes.  These vary according to the material: ocean or pipe, field or building.  If one can find the right harmony, one may perform a duet.  By including an extract of the composition as a preview track, the artist has also created a single; if the wind can be the soundtrack to a walk or an evening inside, why shouldn’t it have the opportunity for radio play?

A trancelike effect is created as the layers build.  The timbre grows thick by the center, nearly impenetrable.  One imagines branches cracking, debris cast across deserted streets.  If physical wind can move objects, can sonic wind move emotions?  In the 19th minute, the chords recede to reveal gale force winds; but the album’s most foreboding moment lasts only a short time, as the electronic pulses return to calm any weather-related anxiety.

By the end, Grand River has made a friend of the wind, which serves as a compositional partner.  Flipping the script from the 19th minute, in the 26th the electronics take temporary control.  Each aspect seems to be listening to the other before proceeding.  Only a minute later, the piece’s clearest howl is heard, what most people imagine when they hear the phrase, “the sound of the wind.”  In the 31st minute, the howl becomes a moan.  In the closing minutes, Portioli makes the most of the stereo field, electronic notes whipping around like gusts in a forest.  Wallace Stevens writes, “one must have a mind of winter … not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind.”  By Tuning the Wind, Portioli has brought the poet’s words to life.  (Richard Allen)