The first time TTBOOK asked me to bring Armageddon, we had it for dessert.
It was 2012 and Shannon O’Malley was on the program promoting her playfully dark Apocalypse Cakes cookbook. Anne asked if I could re-imagine the interview into something more ominous. My pleasure. I’d whipped audio into crazy shapes before, but this was my first time with TTBOOK, a one-time opportunity, or so I thought. That was reason enough to go all out.
Crumbling tectonic plates duet with Berlioz’s “Witches' Sabbath,” as Quetzalcoatl slithers unchecked into your earbuds. Sentient robots rise and explosions grow in number. Symphonie Fantastique builds to its delirious climax just in time for the Earth’s catastrophic end. That final explosion was a blast to make, but I was especially proud of the gentle “solar winds” that followed. A subtle reminder that the universe would continue on without us.
It was good fun. I didn’t think I’d have the chance to do it again. But Armageddon kept following me.
Five years later, I found myself in the Technical Director’s chair for TTBOOK’s second apocalypse, this time with guest star Neil Gaiman. Building a sound world for his vision of Ragnarok was an honor and it required a different approach. Using a slowed down version of Beethoven’s Ninth, I wanted a wall of voices suitable for Norse Mythology. Big drums, fierce winds, bizarre howls, everything was impenetrable. All the human sounds in the mix are small and helpless by comparison. When life finally returns, the voices return with more hopeful chords, along with the Earth’s elements: Future visions of sunlight, plants and dewdrops.
Gaiman tweets his approval, thousands of plays follow and before the Earth could recover, the third doomsday arrives only months later. This time in the form of Lidia Yuknavitch and Joan of Arc. The motif was our demise through a window, the planet’s survivors watching the planet crumble from space. Eruptions and ocean waves are EQ’d to feel distant and removed with the most present sound being Joan’s lonely heartbeat.
Just when I thought I couldn’t imagine another apocalypse, along comes N.K. Jemisin a year later with her Broken Earth trilogy. Jemisin’s words inspired a more feminine Armageddon, as weird as that sounds. Like Gaiman’s Ragnarok, I built the sound design on a wall of voices, this time the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, their ominous tones cut into the mix at surprising moments while a backwards synth bubbles like hot magma, downtuned as the characters exchange blows deep in the Earth’s core.
I believe in the communicative power of sound. These are powerful stories; the books are filled with imagery. But we’re audio storytellers. We are blessed with the opportunity to build an audio realm that’s tactile and nostalgic, adding a layer of information to remind you of the non-verbal cues in your world. The ground, the wind and all the frequencies around you that help tie your everyday perception to the author’s written experience. When done right, I hope we add that wordless layer of wonder and delight that keeps our guests and their remarkable ideas in your head weeks after the podcast leaves your feed.
In this week's show, "As Read By the Author," you'll hear Gaiman and Jemison, along with other writers like Anne Patchett and Richard Powers. And if I have to design my fifth apocalypse, you can bet we’ll find just the right, unique sound to stand alongside the author’s inimitable vision.
–Joe