Pez Push is a project that deals with urban exploration. Producing a sound and visual landscape composition by pushing a skateboard that is transformed into an experimental instrument resembling an electrical guitar.

Push Berlin is a composition I recorded in Berlin in the summer of 2020. I decided to explore the city’s skate infrastructure so I mostly visited skate parks. I also recorded some bits on the way around the city and some abandoned spaces. The recordings were collected on a linear recorder, either through a direct recording or a small Marshall amp replica. As I was exploring the cities soundscape I figured the dry signal from the skate – guitar has become too monotonous to describe the vibe of the city so I added an overdrive and a delay pedal to open up and record a bigger sound scope and a bit more distorted drone bits. Berlin’s street infrastructure is quite rugged with alleys covered by cobblestones and not so smooth concrete, so moving between spots/locations have been mostly by riding a bike or with public transportation. While riding the S Bahn I discovered that the magnetic pick up from the skateboard is collecting the electromagnetic field frequencies from the trains. This is how I decided to connect the sound story between skating on outreached locations and moving between them. On one of my recording trips on the S Bahn I was controlled and ticketed a fine for not having the correct ticket. Another delay.
At the same time of presenting the track as a story about the exploration of Berlin I also wanted to incorporate a narrative of a journey through the day, when we vary from our inside thoughts and the outside world. Skateboarding to me is quite a social experience but at the same time something I can get lost in very fast.

I decided to present this project with a sound piece and a graphic print representation of the ticket that I had on the day when I was fined. On the back of the ticket is a small drawing describing the setup I had with the instrument, pedals and an amp, connected with cables to make a circle, like the S Bahn circles around the city.

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Pez Push is a project that deals with urban exploration through pushing a skateboard around the city which produces a sound and visual landscape.

The skateboard is transformed into an improvised instrument using a magnetic pick up and guitar strings on the bottom of the skateboard. It resembles an electrical guitar as it collects different sounds while it is being pushed around the city streets. It functions as a medium through which the vibrations of strings and other location sounds compose a sound spectrum of a path through a city. A simple gesture as pushing a skateboard represents an element of urban exploration, searching for diverse situations and coincidences that characterizes artist’s impression of the city and local identities. The final outcome of the project is a sound and/or video recording, using only gathered field recordings, that express a mixture of skateboard sounds, guitar sounds and sounds of the urban surroundings; e.a traffic, people... and is telling a story of the city. The visual recording displays the city and it includes the exploration of city social structure, urban infrastructure, occupation and access to public space etc.

Would like to thank some friends for helping me with this project!
Stefan Doepner and Cirkulacija2
Joe Summers
Leona & Max
Morris
James