It sounds like a joke, at best, or, at worst, a ridiculously self-indulgent musical stunt.
After being approached by a luxury car brand, a Dubai DJ has created a track only using sounds made by a car.
That it is musical at all is a surprise – even more surprising is the fact that, despite a sonic palette of revving engines, doors slamming, blaring horns and not much else, it actually sounds rather good.
Chromatic by Infiniti is a bona fide viral hit, clocking almost 200,000 plays on YouTube since it was released in January, reaching curious audiophile-ears around the globe.
It’s all the work of Mostyn Rischmueller – aka Megadon Betamax – an established Dubai-based DJ/producer whose disco-infused dance tunes normally appear on his own Voyeurhythm Records imprint. The gig fell in his lap after he was approached by the Japanese luxury-car brand, Infiniti.
“Of course I had reservations,” says the 40-year-old Australian. “Making music from car sounds – it sounds like it’s going to be terrible. But it was interesting to be given these limitations: ‘You can only work with these sounds and you’ve got to record them yourself’.
“I was confident I could do it – I just didn’t know how I was going to do it.”
For a single day, Rischmueller was given access to a selection of models in the manufacturer’s range and let loose like a mad botanist in a rainforest. Armed with a barrage of mics, the DJ set about exploring the sonic potential of the vehicles, capturing dozens of sound samples from each model – from engine noises to alarms, the whirr of an electric seat to the whoosh of the windscreen wipers.
Experimentation proved to be the key. In a moment of inspiration, the team tried hitting an exposed pipe with a tyre iron, producing a warm, xylophone sound that became an important part of the track’s melody.
"There was a lot of winging it on the day," says Rischmueller, who is a resident at 360°'s popular Audio Tonic club nights. He is also a co-founder of hot underground night Dust, a happening so eclectic it recently won Hype magazine's Best of the Rest Club Nights award.
Having amassed a collection of more than 100 different sound samples, Rischmueller slaved away in his home studio, putting in about 60 hours over two weeks before emerging with a rough mix of the track.
Listening to the tune, it doesn’t sound much like a car. So how did he do it?
First, the track’s tempo was set by the back and forth swipe of windscreen wipers.
Beats came next, primarily made from combined samples of car doors slamming, for the kick/bass drum, while the click of door handles doubled as snares and handclaps.
The percussion potentials were numerous – but the main problem was that there’s not a lot of tune to be found in a car.
“At no point did I think I couldn’t do it, but at some points I thought I might have to cheat a little bit,” says Rischmueller of that creatively fertile, but often frustrating, fortnight.
“The greatest challenge was the melodic stuff. Getting some melody out of a car is quite difficult. Like, when you listen to a horn, it’s never just one note, it’s two notes, about [an interval of] a fourth apart – it sounds wicked on chords, but when you’re trying to make a tune out of it, it gets very hard on the ears.
“So we had to use the studio to create an instrument out of a horn.”
Melody lines were created by cleaning up the sounds, bathing them in ear-easy effects and bending the pitches into melodies. But, crucially, all of the track’s raw sounds came from the car, Rischmueller says.
Engine noises are scattered throughout the finished tune – a deliberate reminder to the listener that this is a car they are hearing – while the pre-recorded voice of the car’s GPS system offers something resembling a tongue-in-cheek take on a vocal line.
The tune has proved so successful, there are plans to release a special edition on vinyl.
“The idea was to create a real song, not just the background for a motoring video – something with artistic integrity that can stand on its own, something that could be played on the radio,” says Rischmueller.
“I’m really happy with the way it came out. A lot of people I’ve told about the idea were like: ‘A car? Isn’t that going to sound terrible?’ People are pretty surprised it actually sounds like music.
“Some of my friends were saying I should do a whole album like this,” he says with a laugh. “Sorry guys, but maybe not.”
• Megadon Betamax is a resident DJ at Dubai Marina Yacht Club on Thursdays and at Audio Tonic at 360°, Jumeirah Beach Hotel on Fridays. Hear his music at soundcloud.com/megadonbetamax
rgarratt@thenational.ae
