Beginning to loosen, being surrounded by pink noise (5)

I believe the answer is:

plink

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'noise' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?

'beginning to loosen being surrounded by pink' is the wordplay.
'beginning to' says to take the initial letters.
'being surrounded by' indicates putting letters inside.
The first letter of 'loosen' is 'l'.
'l' placed inside 'pink' is 'PLINK'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for plink that I've seen before include "Give short sharp sound as of a plucked string" , "Sharp metallic sound" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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