I crouched on a metal bridge to record its vibrations as a mountain stream flowed quickly underneath. I had already attempted to record here a number of times, each venture thwarted by freezing cold winds that made the process too uncomfortable to set up the recording equipment.

Finally, everything seemed perfect. I looked at the moon rising in the darkening winter sky then pressed “record”…

… a couple of minutes passed when it started … the glitch.

Whining sounds interrupted my recording. My contact microphones recording their own death. Quickly testing the other equipment I directed coil pick-ups to my phone and the recorder itself. The familiar sound of pulses and bleeps reassured me that the recorder itself was still fine.

Annoyed, I packed up the equipment and didn’t listen to the recordings again until recently. Tweaking samples from both the contact microphones and coil pick-up this composition celebrates the unintentional; the glitch is moved to the centre, it becomes the subject rather than forgotten detritus.