We were apparently "having weather," reported a static-y voice over the intercom.
Sure enough, at the Yushukan museum one can hear through the static, the voice of the 21-year-old reminiscing about gathering silver grass for moon-viewing parties and having snowball fights.
A static-stippled voice is relayed from 110km up: "This is Major Norman to ground control..."....
Timbres of instruments are barbed with fuzz tone and static; the voices that infrequently appear might be shouting unintelligibly or nearly buried in the mix.
(The static, squeaks, voices and low rumbles provided by the onstage sound artist Jassem Hindi were not, however, rock 'n' roll).
The lights are low, with a glow of illumination from the stage and static of voices, and then, as in the theatre, the room turns a shade darker, the talking subsides.
On her new album, "Vespertine" (Elektra), the beat is often inferred from blips and hisses of static, while her voice traces long, scalloped melody lines across translucent backdrops (keyboards, orchestras, choirs, music boxes) and blotches of muffled distortion.
Static muffled his voice, and the microphone periodically shorted out like an old stereo speaker.
On the field radio, between bursts of static, calm, slow voices brought fresh orders and news of the rest of the operation.
The score, by Chris Lastovicka, Arthur Solari and Andrea Bauer, keeps serving up clichés: nearly static chords, breathy voices, high piano notes, plangent strings that might as well be Barber's Adagio.
