I listened to the final track gazing out the window, watching the traffic go by on Stanstead Road, breathing in the smell of wet asphalt, playing with a can of Coke, trying to tie it all up to this song, wondering if in 10 years’ time, when I’m listening to this piece reminiscing about my youth, I’ll still remember this moment as my senses presented me with it, or if my brain would just fill in the gaps as I’m sure it had done with most of my memories so far.

This is a transcript of the vocal track followed by its English translation.

Imi amintesc noptile pe dig, ploile petrecute sub acoperisul benzinariei, mingea de fotbal, mirosul aerului in preajma brutariei toamna, tigarile furate de la parinti, centrala din parcare. Imi amintesc dupa-amiezile in Cub.a, caldura si magazinul lui Garcea. Imi amintesc un oras intreg zimbind non-stop timp de 3 ani. Imi amintesc luneta lui Marin si pe Deme recuperandu-ma din Valcea cu masina plina de femei. Imi amintesc pasarela din Stefanesti, santierul din Centru, casa de langa Cimitirul Evreiesc. Imi amintrsc Revelionul de la West Gate, piscina rece din Ayia Napa. Calea Lactee.

I remember the nights on the pier, the times I spent under the roof of the gas station waiting for the rain to stop, the football, how the air smelled around the bakery in the fall, the cigarettes I stole from my parents, the power station parking lot. I remember the afternoons in Cub.a, the heat, and Garcea’s shop. I remember Marin’s sniper scope, and Deme coming to pick me up from Valcea with a car full of women. I remember the railway bridge in Stefanesti, the construction site downtown, the house next to the Jewish Graveyard. I remember New Year’s Eve at West Gate, that cold pool in Ayia Napa. The Milkyway.

I press record, close my eyes and start fishing for memories. Pretty soon I wind up with a net full of them. I articulate them and hit the Save button. Now I know I’m in England and this course is conducted in English, but the voice that narrates my past is speaking Romanian so I find myself having to record it in my first language. I load the vocal track into my project and run it through one of my favourite VST effects – Manipulator by Polyverse, subtly warping and bending the timbre of my voice to make it stand out in contrast to the smooth and melting instrumental without breaking the piece’s dreamlike characteristic.

I experiment for a while with a pretty old VSTi called Alchemy. Its straightforward granular engine allows me to create soundscapes that breathe along with the heavily modulated cello which I created using NI’s Session Strings library. I run an instance of Microtonic through Output Portal to create a sort of strange atemporal rhythm. I then use Xfer’s Serum to come up with a glockenspiel-like bell track. From here I start playing with panning and other dynamics that would help channels melt into one another. I’m pleased with the result and proceed to the last part of my endeavor, the vocals.

The plan was to compose a nostalgic-natured melody on top of which I would record a spoken word track, spontaneous and unrehearsed, comprising of whatever memories I could conjure up at that moment. I’m very curious what kind of recollections would this type of short recollection of bits and pieces of my past resurface in let’s say 10 years from now, if of course, God decides to grace my sinful being with another decade of life.

I was coming back from work one night after a particularly difficult shift, and as I was making my way towards Waterloo Station a car drove by with Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction blasting out its windows. Not unlike Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past, hearing a few seconds of that track after so many years instantly pushed my mind down memory lane, with all sorts of places, faces, and events flashing before my eyes. Things long forgotten and things I didn’t even knew I forgot. I decided to write a piece to use as a mnemonic device of sorts.