Aviator, Ghosts, Hauntology and Music

Inspiration for 'Aviator' by PolarVoidX. 

I have a tattoo on my arm, part of a montage, its an aviator. I don’t know why exactly, but the tragic story of my uncle Terry, told to me when I was a small boy stuck in my mind. A kind of moral warning not to behave irrationally.

Sadly, just as with my grandfather who died between the wars, I never met uncle Terry. He tragically crashed his aircraft between the wars in a freak accident. Try as I might I’ve never found any details of the crash, or of his military service. Also strange is my grandfather's story from the navy, but that’s for another time

In search of the Aviator

I’ve spent many an afternoon wandering the Heavitree graveyard in the hope of finding his grave and that of my grandfather and grandmother. Searches of the local archive don’t reveal anything and no physical grave exists, despite the fact I can remember as a small child the cheery call of the bus conductor, “anyone for the boneyard” as my gran and I would get off the bus to visit his grave, she would take flowers and put them in the silver grey pot, it was very forlorn and sombre. Oddly I find a strange calm and beauty in the cemetery now.

Ghosts?

I don’t personally believe in ghosts, although I know a great many people who do. What I will say is that the pull of the past is very strong in that graveyard, the sense of collective history and personal tragedy seems very present. it doesn’t take much of a leap for a believer to assume that some souls stalk the grounds looking for loved ones or trying to find peace amongst the stones.

With that in mind I was inspired to place the aviator in that graveyard, forever lost searching, perhaps for his own resting place. Long forgotten as he indeed seems to be.

YouTube Music Video

On a windy, Sunday afternoon my long suffering friends and family wandered the graveyard looking for the grave of the lost aviator, this time with a not so subtle difference. Vinnie with the help of Phill was finely adorned in the costume of the aviator. We shot some footage of hime wandering amongst the graves. You can see the result here PolarVoidX. As it's a music video a not so subtle, fun ending was added for Halloween.

The Music and Process

I candidly decided, despite the seriousness of the topic, to make it tongue in cheek. I’ve always been a fan of Hammer Horror and Halloween tales, so not much of a leap to find a ghostly aviator stalking the cemetery.
The music began almost hilariously with an E minor take on the devils triad it also pays homage to Danse Macabre which I love. This underpins the entire thing. I love some of the classic horror music and with that in mind I created a grating sequence using a patch on the Korg I made named squeezebox. Once heard you can never quite get it out of your head. The other played elements hint at both Halloween and the exorcist in tone and timbre. the whole theme is designed to be unsettling.

To add to this I added a huge bass roll that plunges down, almost unnoticed except on a really good hifi.

the creepy effects were produced using a zoom recorder. I pinged the strings of an electric guitar above the nut, then slowed the recording down and passed it through a guitar effects pedal. Mixed with some distortion it sounds like someone is trying to tune a radio to a certain frequency but can’t get it to stick. Just as an Aviator in distress might do. 

The second unnerving effect is the vocal, heavily echoed and slowed down, this is the persistent, “Where are you? I can’t find you” it runs through the song and echoes through the cemetery too!

I added a second drier vocal to punctuate the words as they felt important to the sense of lost and loss.

Also present are footsteps, these were recorded as I recced the graveyard in the early evening with my phone. Oddly they seem to have doubled? I didn’t put any echo or reverb on them it must be the natural ambience. Its unsettling to say the least. I sat and isolated that track whilst editing and couldn’t help looking around to check there was no-one there!

The drums are understated, more of an irregular heartbeat than a drum beat.

Finally the diminished finish chords and reveal, it’s cheesy but fun, oddly I felt the need to take the edge off. The squeaky door hinge is my back kitchen door, slowed down a bit.

All the music is played on Korg synths and the effects are added in as patches so I can reproduce and play them live. I try to play everything in a way that I can replicate without a computer in a live setting. Recording often in one hit.

Listen to the music here: Spotify PolarVoidX AppleMusic BandCamp

See the Video Here: PolarVoidX

Conclusion

As I said I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do feel the resonant pull of of the past and the energy of certain places very strongly. I have a deep connection to this city, and sometimes when the sun is setting, the clocks are changing and the shadows are getting longer, I get the sense that that past isn’t as far away as I once thought it was.

The team

I couldn't have pulled off the video and the still images above without a great fun group of co-conspirators, special thanks to Vinnie for being the Aviator, I hope you can sleep at night! Thanks to Phill for the brilliant costume, I've always said you should do props for a living! Thanks to Paul for keeping us on the path, quite literally at times. And finally to Laura, my wife, for her excellent video skills.

Joe K Baker aka PolarVoidX Oct 2022