The sound of fear is one we can easily imagine. A scream, the screech of tires indicating a near auto accident, the cries of a loved one in danger. These are all sounds we can understand and categorize. But what about anxiety? Fear's slow moving cousin? While fear is a burst of negative energy, anxiety is a slow drip. If fear creates an immediate response, anxiety focuses on what might happen next. It is more difficult to grasp or describe. We just know it when we feel it. But what does anxiety sound like?
The following piece explores what social anxiety might sound like from inside the mind of a sufferer. The foundation of the piece is a field recording of a man visiting a grocery store on a snowy day. He goes inside, selects two purchases, pays, and leaves. This was accomplished with a small recorder and a pair of binaural microphones the recordist wore in his own ears. All the people you hear were actual patrons of the store and were unaware they were being recorded.
After this base recording was complete, other sounds were mixed in, many of them manipulated so they were no longer recognizable but suggestive of something deeper.