NICK STORRING

HUMBUCKER MUSIC
(2025, FALT, DIGITAL RELEASE)

(8.52)
(3.25)
(3.16)
(4.33)
(5.59)
(3.40)
(7.58)

Ever since I started moving away from using a lot of processing and synthetic sounds in my work, and sticking to acoustic/ electromechanical instrumentation, I’ve been fascinated by different idiosyncratic ways to record and amplify sound.

Around 2019 I became fascinated with the possibilities of humbucker pickups, particularly the prefabricated ones designed to go into the sound holes of acoustic guitars. After purchasing one, I discovered that they can variously serve as weird and unpredictable contact mics, or amplify vibrations directly adjacent to them, and even act as a means to strike, or “bow” objects (especially with a little rosin!) I started by composing the last piece on this collection, but that simply did not satisfy my curiosity, as their strange behaviour with ferromagnetic objects and instruments excited me a lot. In addition to collecting various compatible materials and playing them in my home studio, as the pandemic hit, I started bringing them and my field recorder on my daily walks. Using a battery of mallets, eBows, and bows, I would capture performance field recordings playing various public structures I would encounter: railings, signs, sculptures, fences, cabling, and bridges. In one instance, I even transduced humbucker recordings I had made at home through a resonant sculpture in my neighbourhood, treating it as a sort of weird plate reverb. Later, a certain pedestrian bridge (captured with humbuckers, contact condenser mics and geophone) became the subject of an extended piece released by Seth Graham’s Avant Lard imprint, Sleepwalking Through Lambton Woods.

Nick Storring — ferromagnetic instruments and objects.

Recorded at home and outdoors by Nick Storring using only humbucker pickups
Performed, composed, produced, mixed and mastered by Nick Storring (2019-2021) using very little processing.
Photography by Nick Storring

PURCHASE DIGITAL FROM FALT

HUMBUCKER MUSIC(2025, FALT, DIGITAL RELEASE)

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HUMBUCKER MUSIC
(2025, FALT, DIGITAL RELEASE)