Aisling Brouwerproduces her music with ADAM Audio

Between Berlin, London and Sri Lanka: Composer Aisling Brouwer Embarks on a Field Recording Adventure with ADAM Audio A3X Monitors

In-demand screen composer Aisling Brouwer has crafted many innovative, evocative scores for film and television, with credits that include BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4 as well as a vast array of adverts and brand films. She has had projects screened at the Sundance, Tribeca and Berlinale film festivals, and is now focusing on the upcoming releases with AVA – her artist project with renowned violinist Anna Phoebe. Brouwer recently embarked on a field recording trip to Sri Lanka to capture audio for future productions – armed only with a laptop, a Zoom hand-held recorder and a pair of ADAM Audio A3X studio monitors.

“This August I had the immense privilege of traveling to Sri Lanka with the aim of recording a vast array of sounds drawn both from the depths of the jungle and the local music culture,” Brouwer recounts. “I travelled with my equipment in hand around the North Western, North Central, and Central provinces and returned with over 80 hours of recorded material.”

The audio samples included local musicians, from instrumentalists of national repute such as mandolin player Antony Surendra to a local villager in the North-Western province playing his harmonium. The richly diverse palette of sounds also included Buddhist chants in a remote temple in the mountains and a monk guiding children through prayer, as well as traditional percussion and dance performances recorded in the vibrant streets of Columbo.

Away from the country’s bustling capital, Brouwer headed to rural regions to record aspects of village life and capture sounds from the stunningly beautiful Sri Lankan forests, such as the world’s loudest insect, the cicada. She then processed the recorded sounds to generate fascinating new sonic textures ready for use in her scoring work.

“The great thing about this industry is that you’re really pushed to innovate yourself constantly.”

“I am particularly interested in the creation of entirely new sounds through the manipulation of these organic takes, and how raw samples enable the creation of an entirely unique sample-bank,” Brouwer explains. “The great thing about this industry is that you’re really pushed to innovate yourself constantly.”

Brouwer relied on ADAM Audio’s A3X monitor while working on her field recordings while on location, yet was no stranger to ADAM Audio’s near- and midfield monitor solutions. Currently the owner of a pair of A7X studio monitors, she recalls the first time she heard them while looking for a new pair of speakers for her production studio. “I heard things in tracks that I’d listened to hundreds and hundreds of times that I’d never heard before and that to me it’s really what made this decision to get them,” she remembers. “Sound is obviously the most important thing in my work and having good monitors helps a lot.”

“I heard things in tracks that I’d listened to hundreds and hundreds of times that I’d never heard before […]”

Growing up in Amsterdam, the Dutch/Irish composer trained at both contemporary and classical institutes in The Netherlands, Los Angeles and subsequently the UK, where she completed an MA in Composition for Film and TV. She now lives in Berlin, where she continues to draw on the new influences from her surroundings and letting them resurface in her musical compositions.

AVA’s debut EP, Waves, is out on March 23rd, followed by the album release in autumn 2018.