False Prime Aura is a sound intervention dedicated to the beauty of church bells and the mistery of their tuning.

The outcome of a bell casting is the product of a long history of hi-end craftsmanship and technology. Every bell is absolutely unique and magnificent, there are no two bells in the world that sound the same.

In the sound of a bell it is possible to distinguish two very distinct levels. One is the chime, that short, piercing and high-pitched sound that is the strike of the clapper against the inner surface of the bell. It is the toll that characterizes the main note of the bell, that reaches far announcing the gathering moment of the faithful or the various rituals of the day.
But there is also a second level of listening, the one more strictly related to the harmony of the bell and which is particularly evident in the vicinity of the source. This is the sound that remains in the background, the one that remains in the air for a long time even after the clapper has stopped striking the bell. It is quite a rich sound, covering a wide range of frequencies, dense and prolonged, a long changing sound drone, rich in oscillations and fluctuations. If we are close enough to the bell tower, by concentrating on our listening it is possible to evade the melody or the rhythm of the tolls in favor of the background sound that the bell produces with its swinging resonating body.

The high frequencies of the bells travel farther but have short duration, while the lower frequencies do not propagate at the same distance but they set in motion more energy and last much longer, reflecting on the surfaces of nearby buildings, creating a complex play of vibrations and multifaceted effects of phase and beats.
This is for me the most seductive and magical characteristic of the sound of the bell, the "en-chantment" that mesmerize me.

I created False Prime Aura to bring this secondary, background sound in evidence and to play with it by emphasizing and reinforcing its basic elements with amplified, digitally generated sinewaves.

The sound of the bell is previously analyzed to detect its harmonic components. The derived spectrum is then utilized to compose a sonorous drone that plays in sync with the bell and in the background of the tollings.

During the play, sound is gradually interwoven by a progressive addition of the electronic counterpoint.