Soundtracking Stillness - Austin Ray’s Sonic Portrait of the Mysterious Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline "mistake lake" in Southern California that has a long and interesting history of resort town popularity, economic disrepair, and as an odd sanctuary for creative outcasts. Film composer and musician Austin Ray grew up on an aquaculture farm on the Californian/Mexican border, where the Salton Sea was a familiar presence. The unusual quiet beauty of this reflective body of water and its desert landscape were a big part of her childhood that taught her to pay extra attention to observe the signs of life and vitality that existed. Splice chatted with Austin to discuss how this unusual place she calls home influenced her sample pack - Salton Sea: Ambient Americana.
Our Interview with Austin Ray
Splice: How would you describe the sound of this pack?
Austin Ray: This Splice pack is a collection of musical elements & sound design in the genre style of Ambient Americana. Atmospheric piano and textural soundscapes weave into an acoustic, country palette of instruments. Not full-on Western, but modern and mature, earthy yet elevated. This pack will complement any soundtrack or song with nostalgic, melancholy, heartfelt themes, or imagery of wide open spaces.
Ambient innovators like Brian Eno, Enya, and Jon Hopkins plus neo-classical artists like Ólafur Arnalds, Hania Rani, and Ludovico Einaudi influenced this pack just as much as alt-folk musicians like Bon Iver, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Ryan Beatty, Hovvdy, or Americana/Country artists like Colter Wall and Lainey Wilson. This pack blends together all of my favorite genres.
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Splice: How did the Salton Sea play a role in developing the sound of this pack?
Austin Ray: Because I’m also a filmmaker in addition to a music composer, I always think through the lens of storytelling. A compelling location is a character in itself. It pulls you into a different (or familiar) world. Think about your favorite movie or film score. Now ask yourself, did the location impact the overall vibe, storyline, or aesthetic of the film? For me personally, the location of the Salton Sea has played a central character in my life.
I grew up on an aquaculture farm on the Californian/Mexican border, so the Salton Sea was a familiar presence. I still marvel at the beauty of this reflective body of water and its endless desert landscape. The quiet of a desert can easily be mistaken for a vast, empty wasteland, but as a child I learned to pay special attention to observe signs of life —albeit well hidden from the scorching midday sun. However, the Salton Sea is very much alive—although at times it likes to play dead. This area has a magical hold on many for its peculiar personality, calming stillness, and surreal isolation. It has a complex and unexpected history, which I talk about in the video.
Splice: How has creating a sample pack been a challenge for you coming from the film composer mindset?
Austin Ray: My process of creating this Splice sound pack was to work in reverse. I’m sure there are more efficient ways of doing it, but it was the most instinctual workflow for me. What can I say, I’m a lefty and don’t always go about things in the “right” order. ;-) I wrote a collection of demos, almost like a score to an imaginary film, and then deconstructed every cue into individual instruments, phrases, melodies, articulations, and textures. One benefit of this “songs-to-sounds” workflow is that the majority of the samples weave together seamlessly since many are in the relative Bm/D scales. While collecting field recordings and environmental sounds, I was thinking, does this palm frond have a musicality to it? Could this weird geothermal pipe be a unique percussive element? We composers and artists are sonic collectors—always trying to find a unique pathway into a listener’s ear.
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Splice: What was your thought process behind building the instrumental landscape on this pack to match the Salton Sea landscape?
Austin Ray: We recorded pedal steel with the phenomenally talented Tyler Nuffer (touring musician for Lizzy McAlpine & Ryan Beatty) which gives the pack an emotionally expressive ambient and melodic sound. Upright bass and cello were played by the global and gifted musician Miles Jay (as heard on the Peaky Blinders score and touring with Beats Antique). The strings elevate the pack’s cinematic foundation. I composed and played felted piano, acoustic guitar, synths, and recorded a variety of my own ethereal vocal harmonies, raspy low notes, humming, plus wistful whistling to give the pack a human touch. I also jammed with guitar-builder Christian Ahlstrom to add a few last minute folk guitar riffs. On location, I recorded authentic desert sounds including steam from natural geothermal springs, gentle lapping waves, and the distinctive songs of native birds such as the Gambel’s Quail and Black-necked Stilt. To add to the local sonic palette, I recorded wind chimes fabricated by a local resident, agricultural machinery, and experimental samples of crunching gravel, rustling wind—to name a few. Capturing the sounds of a lonesome passing train took 2 hours of waiting and listening on a desolate dirt road in the desert heat.
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Splice: What are the future frontiers for the Salton Sea sound you've created beyond the sample pack?
Austin Ray: Alongside the Splice sound pack, I’m releasing an accompanying Ambient Americana album containing the instrumental songs created solely from this palette. To follow along, and see more behind-the-scenes content (such as me falling in the mud on the Salton Sea shoreline), check out my Instagram @austinraycomposer. If you’re inspired to incorporate these sounds into any of your own creations, please share with me. I’d love to listen!
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Whether you're scoring to picture of a desolate landscape or wanting to breathe a sense of depth and emotion into your next prodcution, Salton Sea Ambient Americana offers a toolkit grounded in feeling, texture, and inner exploration. These sounds are an open invitation to collaborate—cut, warp, and reimagine them into something wholly yours. Download the pack now on Splice and start creating with the same sounds from the Salton Sea that inspire Austin Ray herself.