Siena, September 2020. We went to Siena for the first time to see the uncovering of the Cathedral floor — that marble inlay that normally lies hidden beneath a protective covering.
The hotel was outside the city walls, in the lower part of town. To reach the historic centre you pass through Porta San Francesco: five escalators in sequence, enclosed within the hill, rising from the lower city to the upper one. Not what you expect in a medieval setting. And yet there it is.
What I didn't expect was the sound. Each escalator has its own creak, its own friction frequency, its own reverberation — shaped by the form and surfaces of that particular section of tunnel. Together the five build something both involuntary and precise: a kind of mechanical polyphony with no author, but with its own logic. You can walk through that sound.
I recorded it on a smartphone, choosing a time when almost no one was around — I didn't want voices. I had no specific goal: I just wanted to hold onto something. Over time, this material found its way into some of my compositions as a source to be processed. I'm publishing it here in its original form — because as it is, without intervention, it holds.
Technical notes
Type — Field recording / soundscape
Year — 2020
Duration — 3'12"
Channels — Stereo
Recording device — Smartphone
Location — Porta San Francesco, Siena