I recorded the sounds of my crying and my mother’s laughter in different compositions, then worked with the samples as purely abstract sounds. As the sounds were detached from their original contexts and human emotions, they transcended into a vulnerable but cathartic experience. The other two sounds, made from inanimate objects such as clanging keys and falling water, play the analogies of the human sounds from my mother and me. As she once jokingly said, “According to phong thuỷ (fengshui), I was born in the Year of Metal and you, the Year of Water.
This work was premiered at the Texas Tech University Electronic and Computer Music Hub Fall Virtual Concert, October 28, 2020.