LA-based musician turns Golden Gate bridge into world's "largest wind instrument"

Guitarist and songwriter Nate Mercereau turned to an unconventional source of inspiration when recording his latest EP: the sounds of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Thanks to a quirk (or a flaw, depending on your perspective) in the design of a recent structural modification, the bridge has been producing ethereal drone sounds in strong winds. The sound has caused some controversy among local residents, who have reported hearing it from as far as three miles away and described it as something akin to "a giant wheezing kazoo". We'd say it sounds more like Eliane Radigue. 

Nate Mercereau, an LA-based songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, has released a collection of recordings that pair the bridge's drones with some of his own. The results are (somewhat surprisingly) impressive: Mercerau's spaced-out guitar improvisations harmonise beautifully with the bridge's natural hum. 

Mercereau, an accomplished musician who has worked with Jay-Z and John Legend, remarked that "there is nothing quite like hearing something so vastly large make that much sound powered by nature. The tones smear and crescendo as the wind picks up, and it gets so loud that at some points you can feel your own body vibrate with it."

If you'd like to hear the sound in person, don't delay - engineers are currently working on a solution to silence the bridge, permanently. 

Nate Mercereau's EP, Duets | Golden Gate Bridge, is out now.