Whiplash by Asha Sheshadri

For something so integral to the human experience, memory can be fleeting and untrustworthy. This ever-mutable storyteller is complex, driven not only by past experience but about a billion other factors- oftentimes, processing our memories happens alongside our stream of consciousness, this train of thought not nearly as straightforward as we’d like. In Whiplash, musician and multimedia artist Asha Sheshadri stitches together spoken word with ambient classical music as she flips between smartly-written reflections and deep personal confessions, challenging the listener to trace the narrative and keep up. With excerpts from famous writers, personal writing from the artist herself, ethnographic studies, voice memos, photography, and more, the project is a true experiment in sound collage. Like a diary, Whiplash divulges the most personal dreams and fears, ultimately revealing the self-understanding of everyday people as they describe the joys and heartbreaks of their lives. As the project builds, pleasing piano triads turn tense when layered with drowned out vocal samples, shrill strings, and phone receiver beepings spliced between static pitch. 

Sometimes experimental sound collage projects are confusing and arbitrary, leaving you wondering whether there was any concept at all. (To be clear, this method is valid and has led to extremely compelling art!) In Whiplash however, the clips are arranged in a cohesive pattern alongside the music in a way that reflects authentic thought processes.