16.11.27 / Bassin de l’Arsenal / This was the final recording I made in Paris, so it felt right to use it to finish my album / I had seen the boat basin a few times, but this was my first chance to get down there and record / The basin sits down between the surrounding roads / It takes about 15 minutes to walk the length of it and holds many beautiful quirky houseboats and longboats / It was already dark and just a few groups of people could be seen here and there on the dimly lit pathway alongside the boats / Whilst beautiful, the sounds of the basin were disappointingly generic / The water was still and the boats sat silently at their moorings / The sounds of the basin largely consisted of traffic bombing down the two boulevards that run parallel / At the end of the basin, behind a zigzagging metal bridge, a single light illuminated a pathway, which I guessed ran under the roads and through to the river Seine / In all honesty it didn’t look very safe / Although my confidence had grown massively since arriving in Paris, I was very keen to stay street-smart and not have my microphones robbed / Nevertheless after seeing a jogger emerge from the pathway, I decided to take a look / As the stone of the basin walls and the metal of bridges encompassed me, the noise of the roads and emergency sirens died away to a blurred background / I was able to pick up the sound of running water escaping from the basin lock gates / I loved the dankness of the sound as it bounced off the metal surfaces /

It was then as I was setting up to record, a deep roar came out of nowhere and this cataclysm of rhythmic sound erupted from above me / Looking up I realized I was standing directly underneath a rail line, and layered beneath the shuddering of the bridge were the distinctive whistles and metallic zips of the Parisian metro / In fact I was actually standing fifteen meters from Quai de la Rapée station / The sound of the distant sirens, the draining water and the screeching metro left a lasting impact on me / It was just what I had been waiting for / I spent a while trying to work out why I was so attracted to these sounds and why I was standing there when I could be recording at the feet of the Eiffel tower, or on the Champs-Élysées or the ambience of an art gallery / I think its because in the end I don’t appreciate Paris for its art alone, or for its famous buildings or for its perfect beautiful tree-lined streets / What makes the city lovable to me is that it has very visible flaws / It can feel dangerous, it can be messy it can be gritty / It is sometimes hard work / It isn’t just some kind of primetime regulated, carefully calculated show for the world / It only holds integrity because it continues to be a real functioning city with all the vivacity, spontaneity, mess and ultimately charm that comes with it / In the end, one season doesn’t begin to touch the edges of what can be discovered in this constantly changing metropolis / It has however made an impression on me; a tiny addition of something Parisian, which I will carry with me until I return //

All recordings and Photos by Ben Gale See the PDF: https://issuu.com/bivouacrecording/docs/60_minute_cities-_paris-_ben_gale

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