266

Niche constructions. THOMAS BESLEY
(Impulsive Habitat 2013)

Review by Cheryl Tipp

There’s little wonder why field recordists choose to visit Madagascar. Cloaked in an air of exoticism and full of intriguing species that can be found nowhere else on Earth, Madagascar would be near the top of anybody’s wishlist. Even the very names of the animals that inhabit the island lure you in: Helmet Vanga, Indri, White-throated Oxylabes, Diademed Sifaka, Sakalava Rail and the Nelicourvi Weaver. What are these mysterious creatures, what do they look like and, more importantly, sound like?

Thomas Besley has taken binaural recordings made during a trip to this island country lying in the Indian Ocean and created a beautiful 38 minute composition that is tranquil, engaging and full of surprises. In the accompanying notes, Besley writes that he wanted to give an impression of the different habitats through which he passed. He certainly achieves this and yet the transitions are not overly obvious or distracting.

If I had to choose one word to describe ‘Niche Constructions’, that word would be serene. Though there are occasional pockets of heightened vocal activity, the overall feel is quite gentle. If you had been lulled into a state of relaxation however, the unexpected rampant calls of a group of Red-ruffed lemurs towards the end of the piece will definitely change that!

As with David Michael’s ‘El Yunque’ (Impulsive Habitat) and Rodolphe Alexis’ ‘Sempervirent’ (Gruenrekorder), Besley has not been tempted to create a formulaic “rainforest” atmosphere, if such a thing even exists. What I mean is, there has been no attempt to create a sonically diverse soundscape just because that is how many people assume a rainforest would sound.

Species heard during the course of the composition are listed in the booklet, which also contains a series of photographs that make you just want to pack your bags and head straight there. What strikes the reader on browsing this species inventory is that most of the animals heard are under threat. Two – the Black and White Ruffed Lemur and the Silky Sifaka – are critically endangered. The experience of listening to these voices is thus tinged with poignancy; will these animals and those who are battling to save them from extinction be successful or will we eventually only be able to hear their calls through the medium of recorded sound. Possibly one of the saddest things I’ve read in a long time is Besley’s reference to a recording which didn’t make it onto the release – recordings of the endangered Golden-crowned Sifaka calling out for his lost mate above the sound of artisan miners who uproot trees and clear bushland as they pan for gold. I feel these recordings need to be heard, maybe not on this platform, but somewhere – could there be a more emotive way to highlight the plight of these persecuted species?

‘Niche Constructions’ sits well alongside previous releases from Impulsive Habitat. As always the listener is treated to a well composed piece that can be both enjoyable to listen to and thought provoking at the same time. This is just one of the reasons why Impulsive Habitat is one of the most respected and prolific netlabels out there.

[Thomas Besley; photo courtesy of Radio Academy]

Thomas Besley website
Impulsive Habitat website

223

El Coyote

Sound and text by David Velez.
Photos by Lina Velandia.

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‘El Coyote’ is a sonic, visual and written essay based on my experience in the touristic complex of Bijao in Panama on January of 2013.

In Bijao the tension between the ecosystem and the intrusive architecture was evident from the moment I arrived: this environmental contrast and the subjacent anthropological and biological implications expressed in the formal aspects of the area became the focus of my artistic interest.

These recordings are not about an ideal virgin natural environment, but about an available quotidian environment with presence of men, machines and architecture on a predominantly natural habitat. If wild life recordings are considered neo-romantic, I’d consider these recordings neo-realistic.

On a more specific approach ‘El coyote’  is about the way the animals adapt their acoustic behavior to the sounds of machines when they become part of their their environment. About how the questions and reflections of my interest are projected and reflected in this environment and the resonance I managed to establish with it.

I asked photographer Lina Velandia to capture images as I wanted this essay to be both sonic and visual. The images reflect the acousmatic character of environmental recordings when birds, insects and amphibians inhabit the area. The photos also serve as some sort of contrasting element to the sounds: while in the sound piece the animals are in the foreground and the machines in the background, in the images we see no animals but we can only see the intrusive presence of men depicted in the construction machinery and in the aridity of certain spots found in Bijao.

During the recordings of these sounds, some reflections in regard of the phonographic composition came to my mind so I am using them to complement the essay.

-The sound material was composed with long fragments of recordings without layer processing. Some equalization was done at certain parts to explore the possibility of making them more realistic-

On working with a subject

The most important aspect about working with a subject is that it prompts the need for creative and research methods. It establishes rules that for some reason always make the creative artistic work more interesting and formally productive for me.

On the listening experience

Listening is what creates a real sense of environment because it connects us with a multitude of events simultaneously in a 360 degree ratio. Sight in the other hand is more punctual and unidirectional where totality is established as the sum of the moments that we needed to reckon every single event that builds a landscape. Visual images deal with landscapes, sound images deal with environments. The illusion of depth and reverberation seems to imprint the passing of time better that the illusion of perspective and this is probably why sound is a defining and structural element in every piece of work I do.

On sound pollution

The sound pollution issue is one of the aspects of the listening experience that interest me the most in a creative and research aspect. Sound pollution and pollution in general is the catastrophic result of human progress. Catastrophic in the sense that environments are drastically and quickly changing. I am not a news journalist or an environmental activist I just experience the quotidian world and use this experience as raw stock for my work.

On recording the sensible listening experience

After an initial crisis with working with recordings, a few years later I will find that the useless and futile nature of capturing sounds is just of metaphor to the unfathomable nature of our ephemeral existence. Whenever we want to grab and retain time it will slip though our fingers like water. And that emptiness is all the time we can grab and retain.

On why I record

One summer night of 2009 I couldn’t sleep so got up from bed and went to the living room. It was late so everything was quiet. Anyway I still managed to listen to a distant crescent drone approaching. The experience with this drone lead me to think about the end of time. Four years later I understand that the end of time was a metaphor to the end of me. To the catastrophe of my death and the death of all the things around me, a subject of particularly strong concern for me since my early adolescence.

On the listeners’ experience

One of the really interesting aspects of the listening experience of a sound art piece is the way the listeners experience things after the piece is finished. This can relate to the way the phonographic artist experiences things after he finishes recording.

On the role of phonographic based sound art

The formalism in phonographic based composition is one of the facts why it remains such an elitist art form. Most of its audience is composed by sound artists, and this endogamic structure has kept the practice isolated in a self containing bubble. To work with a thematic subject could be a useful tool in order to make the line of work more accessible to a more general and massive audience gaining legitimacy within the art community. Phonography and concrete composition need a proper critic agenda ran by people who don’t necessarily have to be artists or composers. Field recording based sound art needs to claim a public spot in order to avoid the introspective and cryptic character that tends to exhibits in today’s cultural agenda.

On narratives in sound composition

When composing or performing the artist deals with two different narrative coordinates: 1- The one established by the illusion of depth linking punctual locations on the environment (like overlapping layers to compose a single plane) and 2- the coordinate established by the illusion of change that links punctual events on a timeline (like connecting points to form a single vector).

El coyote

I was recordings frogs on a Golf field at 1:30 Am when a Coyote passed near by me. He looked at me and then disappeared into the shadows. This was a reminder of my human condition and the potential danger that nature presents to us which is why we invented architecture. Sound pollution in some way is an intrinsic aura that I can’t escape from and this has to reflect on the ideal and naive discourse about noise in the highly developed countries when considered the sound pollution issue in the lessen developed countries.

[Lina Velandia]

[David Velez, photo by Lina Velandia]

David Velez website
Lina Velandia website

Retrospective article for 2012 PART II (214)

2012 Retrospective post: what our Editors, and some guest artists, curators, journalists and managers think was noteworthy

More texts, lists and notes from our editors and guests.

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Daniel Crokaert (works at Unfathomless and Mystery Sea, Editor for The Field Reporter)

SURVIVAL KIT/OBSESSIONS: Impulsive Habitat – Kaon La Rivière series – Darius Ciuta – Artificial Memory Trace – David Velez – Tarab

BEAUTIFUL ENCOUNTERS/DISCOVERIES: TAKANOBU HOSHINO, MARTIN KAY, JIYEON KIM, LIZZIE POGSON, Limnee. PABLO SANZ (Silence Radio), Forest Night. KATARINA TZEDAKI (on Soundcloud)

BEYOND

Alcor. ASTOR (Kye)
Epilog (Recombinant). CHRISTOPHER McFALL (Con-v)
Where Are The Roots That Clutch. MURMER (The Helenscarsdale Agency)
Exotic Exit. VANESSA ROSSETTO (Kye)
An Accident In Substance. SMALL CRUEL PARTY (Harbinger Sound)
Shards Of Splinters – Fragments Of Scratches/Killastiku – Kriimude Killud. TARAB (Semperflorens)
Débris. JANA WINDEREN (Touch)

ABOVE

Spectral Territories pt.1. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (Tentacles Of Perception)
Spectral Territories pt.2. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (Tentacles Of Perception)
Sempervirent. RODOLPHE ALEXIS (Gruenrekorder)
Jhirna Jali. PETER CAELDRIES (Gruenrekorder)
H_CS. DARIUS CIUTA (EchOmusic)
Mina. DARIUS CIUTA (Green Field Recordings)
Re-g-z. DARIUS CIUTA (Self-Release)
The Fields Remain While The Recorder Has Long Vanished. D’INCISE (Impulsive Habitat)
If Memory Should Serve Us Again. JOHN GRZINICH (Self-Release)
34:13_Ambeliona. MECHA/ORGA (Triple Bath)
Sept 2012. MICHAEL NORTHAM (Self-Release/Download only)
El Gris En Nuestras Vidas. GIL SANSÓN (Impulsive Habitat)
Recordings Of A Crepuscular Event. PHILIP SULIDAE (Impulsive Habitat)
Little.Jewel. COLLIN THOMAS (Self-Release)
Hto. MICHAEL TROMMER (3leaves)
El Pájaro Que Escucha. DAVID VELEZ (3Leaves)
Drenaje Subterráneo. JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO & PABLO RECHE (SiRiDisc)
Insecta. JEPH JERMAN & FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC (Semperflorens)
Aspects. HIROKI SASAJIMA & YUKI IZUMI (Somehow Recordings)
Traces of artificial memories. VA -curated by David Velez (Impulsive Habitat)

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Ultrealith. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (Gruenrekorder)
N. Rio Tau. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (Kaon)
Residues Of Implodex Tremoranti. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE
Entrances. BANKS BAILEY (Quiet World)
Trazado Oculto. JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO (Mandorla)
Panaural. JOÃO CASTRO PINTO (Triple Bath)
Iin. DARIUS CIUTA (Nephogram)
Holes/Tract. COPPICE (Consumer Waste)
Binatone Galaxy. STEPHEN CORNFORD (Senufo Editions)
Go Outside. ROBERT CURGENVEN (Kaon)
Taî-pak thiaⁿ saⁿ piàn. YANNICK DAUBY (Kalerne)
Are Fishes Nihilist?. D’INCISE (Kaon)
An Occupied House. D.O.R. (Caduc.)
Deux Trois Choses Ou Presque (Scores By Manfred Werder). BRUNO DUPLANT (Engraved Glass)
No Where. BRUNO DUPLANT & DARIUS CIUTA (Impulsive Habitat)
TransMongolian. ROLAND ETZIN (Gruenrekorder)
Au Sud. HONORÉ FERAILLE (Audio Gourmet)
Encore Un Peu De Ce Monde. FLAVIEN GILLIÉ (Self-Release)
Madal Öö (Shallow Night). JOHN GRZINICH (Engraved Glass)
Raining – Small Music N°3. ROLF JULIUS (Western Vinyl)
Omnimoment. HITOSHI KOJO (Octpia)
Novaya Zemlya. THOMAS KÖNER (Touch)
Thief. LANCE AUSTIN OLSEN (Infrequency)
Organisms. DALE LLOYD (And/OAR)
Le Trou du Lapin. DALE LLOYD (Kaon)
Ay. MAAR (Entr’acte)
On Motion, Stasis And The Geometry Of Desire. SOCRATES MARTINIS (Antifrost)
18:36. MECHA/ORGA (Orila)
40:31. MECHA/ORGA (Impulsive Habitat)
Passing Ressemblance. MITES (Copy For Your Records)
Buiti Binafin. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY (3Leaves)
Suara Alam Indonesia. DAVE PHILLIPS (Nuun)
Soft Space Selection. LIZZIE POGSON (Self-Release)
Microclima. PABLO RECHE (Impulsive Habitat)
Instamatic : Snowdonia. JEZ RILEY FRENCH (Engraved Glass)
Three Days Of Silence. PIETRO RIPARBELLI (Gruenrekorder)
Berlin Fields. STEVE RODEN (3Leaves)
Colony. HIROKI SASAJIMA (Impulsive Habitat)
Movement. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)
Edgelands. MICHAEL TROMMER (Gruenrekorder)
Forma Y Percepción. DAVID VELEZ (Impulsive Habitat)
Concert For No One. SIMON WHETHAM (Impulsive Habitat)
Gryphaea. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Observatoire)
South Gare. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Linear Obsessional Recordings)
Ch – da ( d – 2). CHRIS WHITEHEAD & DARIUS CIUTA (Impulsive Habitat)
Ste-33. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (on Soundcloud)
Craster And The Aftermath. JAMES WYNESS (Self-Release/download only)
Embalse (I). JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO + MANRICO MONTERO +PABLO RECHE (Impulsive habitat)
Built Through. ROBERT CURGENVEN & RICHARD CHARTIER (Line)
Lind, Raud, Aastaajad. YANNICK DAUBY& JOHN GRZINICH & MURMER (Invisible Birds)
Angle. IVON OATES + CAITLIN COPELAND + DAVID ROGERS + JOE STEVENS (51degreesnorth)
V-p V-f Is V-n. V/A (Winds Measure Recordings)
split. WILL MONTGOMERY/ROBERT CURGENVEN (Winds Measure Recordings)
Chapel. MANDY RATHBONE + DAVID ROGERS + JOE STEVENS (51degreesnorth)

RESURFACING

The Footpath. LOREN CHASSE (Naturestrip)
Alice Springs, Central Australia. ROBERT CURGENVEN & CHRIS HOWDEN (Recorded Fields)
Neenah Foundry. PAUWEL DE BUCK (on Soundcloud)
Seven Vignettes. LEE PATTERSON (Shadazz)
Canopy Beat. ELS VIAENE (Silence Radio)

Simon Whetham (sound artist, honorary Harlem Globetrotter)

andrea polli & joe gilmore – ‘n.’ – minimal bliss
yair lopez – ‘pueblos magicos’ – great snapshot recordings from mexico

juan jose calarco & david velez – ‘bahias’ – it took a while for me to get into this one, but then it clicked – nice flow between the two artists

lizzie pogson – ‘soft space selection’ – gorgeous combination of music and field recordings

tarab – ‘i’m lost’ – sneak preview of forthcoming album. great composition

luong hue trinh – ‘black circle’ – another fantastic combination of music, field recordings and great composition – a name to watch out for

tea rockers quintet – ‘ceremony’ – yan jun + 3 other musicians and a tea ceremony master – incredible
hiroki sasajima & takahisa hirao – ‘hidden birds nest’ – atmospheric and peaceful
cloudbuilder – ‘lowrider’ – improvisation has never sounded so gorgeous to me!
night shift – ‘trespassers guide to nowhere’ – a lovely and surprising album from these russian artists

Edu Comelles (sound artist, works at Audiotalaia)

The Bad News: WORST OF 2012 (without giving any names, or just mine):

Is not usual that in this very world we point out what we haven’t liked. Just because of that I’m going to write about what I didn’t like of this past year regarding field recordings production, composition, etc,…

Mainly I have become very tired and bored of hearing thousands of albums about, birds, insects, forests, jungle, exotic landscapes, seals in the Antarctica and so on. It seems (and seen from the outside) that we, phonographists are centered and working mainly in the natural world, and even more: the natural world and the colonialist need for discovering far away cultures and soundscapes. This reminds me of the topics and desires of those European explorers of the 19th Century, which now, in some fields of the arts, this is seen as something, lets call it, “old fashioned”. But maybe, this allows for further development and maybe that’s not the right place to do it.

Back to the main thing, I’m betting that if we make a survey we will find that 90% of albums released this year are about the natural world, and the rest albums about “something else”. Even more, I think there is a general need for finding very pleasant sound ambiences, keeping the thought that we need to preserve sounds threatened by oblivion or progress. This includes the love for ancient sounds or the rural world (here I include myself to do some self-criticism) and the eternal quest for beauty. Of course anyone can do whatever they want but I have to admit that there is a worrying lack of (for example) albums or recordings about mundane, noisy ambiences, crowded city soundscapes, supermarkets, shopping centers and, why not, a phonographic album about trash culture. So the question is: why not?

In terms of composition I have also issues on the general pace of field recordings composition is taking. I found myself everyday listening to works based on linearity, works based on minimalism with very few elements to sustain it. It is complicated to find works where there are abrupt changes, wild turns and disturbing progressions. It seems that field recordings follows the drone-ambient line of work with composition.

Finally, one of the worst things I have encountered while listening works based on field recordings is the love for very long works and compositions. I have found myself many times feeling very tired when I have to listen to 40-50 minutes of field recordings. Really, that seems a banal thought but think it carefully, is not that silly. I love when I found a 15 minutes field recording composition, maybe there is no need for more, do we really need to be 45 minutes listening a distant bird or insect? Maybe with a couple of minutes it’s just enough. And thinking more in terms of the general public (apart from us, lovers of this kind of things) there is a very wide range of listeners who won’t spend an hour of their time listening to this kind of works. Instead, with something shorter maybe you get the chance for people to get closer to listen and to appreciate the beautiful world of field recordings. I found myself many times saying the same: if you cannot tell a story in 20-30 minutes, don’t tell it at all.

Summing up, the worst album of the year is the longest with more natural ambiences on it, find it and you’ll get it. The bright side of all of this is that there is a lot to analyze, massive production and, moreover a very good level and quality, maybe the bad news contain a subjacent good news, and those might be the good health of a growing scene.

A few examples of works based on field recordings that had surprised me quite a lot:

Transit Mundi – Carlos Suárez

Because Carlos Suárez has been able to create a very personal, rich and complex world made of soundscapes, a thrilling album full of tension, emotion, beauty and horror. A field recordings roller-coaster.

http://luscinia.ruidemos.org/transitmundi.htm

Música para Palimpsestos – Paco Rossique

Because its just a beautiful piece of work, conceived as a soundtrack for Rossique’s own paintings exhibition in Canarias, because is has been unjustifiably forgotten. Its not exclusively field recordings but I found that this work by Rossique is an abstraction of a museum soundscape, plane and simple.

http://pacorossique.bandcamp.com/

Serendipity Effects – Regina Burbach

Because its a short work but very dense, barroque and full of strange recordings mixed with signal processing. A very amusing piece that keeps you in the loop wanting more.

http://www.audiotalaia.net/catalogue/at054-regina-burbach/

I Misteri – Giovanni Lami

Because of shortness and because the album isn’t centered on natural sounds. Hurray!

http://www.impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab051.htm

Barcelona – Jan Kees-Helms

Because I love the capacity of Jan Kees-Helms to present a very wide palette of very mundane sounds. Because it seems that he doesn’t need to get to Alaska to find interesting sonorities.

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab043.htm

Gil Sansón (sound artist)

A short list of records that made a strong impression this year

Wandelweiser und so weiter (various artists) another timbre
Empty Words (John Cage) edition wandelweiser
Exotic Exit (Vanessa Rossetto) kye
Decentering (Richard Garet) sourdine
Occult Rock (Aluk Todolo) ajna offensive/norma evangelium diaboli
Fields Have Ears 6 (Michael Pisaro) Gravity Wave
Nowhere (Bruno Duplant, Darius Ciuta) Impulsive Habitat
As It Is (John Cage) ECM
Quelques Usines Fantomes (Bruno Duplant) Unfathomless
Sugarcubes (Bunita Marcus) testklang

Retrospective article for 2012 PART I (213)

2012 Retrospective post: what our Editors, and some guest artists, curators, journalists and managers think was noteworthy

by David Velez. Chief Editor of The Field Reporter

2012 was a very busy year in terms of the number of field recordings-based releases that were published both physically and digitally: The Field Reporter alone reviewed around 160 releases that ranged from pure documental to heavily processed and also works that combine field recordings with sounds generated with electronic and acoustic means.

The increase in references and brands for handy recorders and recording equipment in general, and the emergence of new labels focusing on the field recording practice, could lead to believe that the number of people out there recording and using those recordings with an artistic purpose is on a rise. The pertinent question here is why?

On a personal note I believe that there is a growing cultural interest on the environmental aspects of the sensible experience caused in part by the strong political moment we live, a moment where the notion of progress and economical growth is being questioned on a massive level. The environment is a matter of collective interest, is something we all share and this is why we could find such political implications when we are confronted with our environment and deal with it artistically. But is this the reason why people are turning to recording and listening more and more?

The visual image has been the subject of exploitation by marketing and advertising for a long time now. When in front of a visual image that we could enjoy we are under the fear that we are expected to behave, feel and think in a particular way determined by the psychological strategy that created that image while serving economical and ideological interests; in a way is like we can’t trust the beauty in our eyes anymore. So what can we trust?

Concrete sounds when presented in an acousmatic fashion show the possibility of a open interpretation. In the reduced hearing the sound creates the object and not the other way around. Seemingly there is more to imagine when we can hear than when we can see.

On Michael Chion’s book ‘Audiovision’ sound is regarded as the element that helps making the moving images of film believable. Hearing is the sense that imprints the notion of movement and motion the best in comparison to sight. Sight is more punctual, like a scanning process where we can only focus on one thing at a time. Sound is like this stream that connects us with the world, a constant connection with the universe we are part of via vibration.

In despite of its potential open interpretative character, sound seems to establish a sense of reality better than any other medium because is the one that captures the of notion time -expressed as motion and change- in a more realistic way and by that it captures the notion of the universal where totality works like a vector rather than a simple sum of things.

I really don’t know if the ideas presented here actually explain the growing interest that sound is drawing in the creative and artistic community but hopefully they could be of help. Like we said when we started, The Field Reporter cares about the reasons and implications subjacent in our recording and listening actions. Why we record what we record? Why we listen what we listen? Does it really matter? These are the questions that interest us.

Notes and lists by Editors and guest

On The Field Reporter every year we like to make a sort of guide for our readers with sound, releases, places, ideas that were notable through 2012. With that on mind we contacted a group of artists, journalists and curators to join our team making a series of lists and notes of what they think was noteworthy through 2012. This year we have a new element: mixes made by some of our editors with fragments from those works and experiences.

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Richard Allen (journalist at A Closer Listen)

ESK. CRAIG VEAR (3Leaves)
Below Sea Level. SIMON SCOTT (12k)
Omiyage. RAUL FUENTES (LEA)
Folkestone Lighthouse. BEING (Wist)
Mirage de Loire. HERVE MOIRE (Aposiopèse)
Sonido Descompuesto. DAVID VELEZ (Unfathomless)
Sounds From Dangerous Places. PETER CUSAK (ReR Megacorp)
Chitin. AMT -Slavek Kwi- (Taâlem)
What Are The Roots That Clutch. MURMER (Helen Scarsdale Agency)
Birds of a Feather Series. PORYA HATAMI, MICHAEL TROMMER (Flaming Pines)

Luis Antero (sound artist, works at Green Field)

Sunrise in the Sukau rainforest. CHRIS WATSON (Framework Seasonal, issue #3, autumn 2012)
Colony. HIROKI SASAJIMA (Impulsive Habitat)
HTO. MICHAEL TROMMER (3Leaves)
34:13 Ambeliona. MECHA / ORGA -Yiorgis Sakellariou- (Triple Bath)
ESK. CRAIG VEAR (3Leaves)
Plotina. SALA (Obs)
Systemic collapse. JAY-DEA LOPEZ (Impulsive Habitat)
Somewhere on the edge. VA (Gruenrekorder)

Darius Ciuta (sound artist)

Landscape Sculpture with Fog Horns, San Francisco. BILL FONTANA( New Music America)
Spectral territories Pt2. AMT -Slavek Kwi (self -release)
El gris en nuestras vidas. GIL SANSÓN (Impulsive Habitat)
Two Films. JOHN GRZINICH (And/OAR)
Concert for no-one
. SIMON WHETHAM (Impulsive Habitat)

Stephen Cornford (sound artist, works at Consumer Waste)

Sound Sculptures, Tate Gallery 1982. JEAN TINGUELY
(Edition Bierammer)
Mutanza. REINHOLD FRIEDL (Bocian)
Kreuzmusik Fluxid Behandlung Op 189. HENING CHRISTIANSEN
(Kye / Penultimate press)
Crowded. KEVIN DRUMM (Bocian)
Anthem. JOE COLLEY (Misanthropic Agenda)
Coldwater Basin. PHILIP CORNER (Alga Marghen)
Cathode Deafness. NICOLA RATTI (Musica Moderna)
Vitra Sonder. SEWER SELECTION (Throne Heap)
s/t . YEAST CULTURE (Art Into Life)
Raining. ROLF JULIUS (Western Vinyl)

Bruno Duplant (sound artist)

CrossHatches. MICHAEL PISARO, TOSHIYA TSUONDA (Erstwhile)
Exotic Exit. VANESSA ROSSETTO (Kye)
Alcor. ASTOR (Kye)
Lonely microphone. JOE COLLEY (Senufo)
Field have ears (6). MICHAEL PISARO (Gravity wave)
v – p v-f is v – n 2013. VA (Winds Measure)
2005¹. MANFRED WERDER -Jason Kahn- (Winds Measure)
El gris en nuestras vidas. GIL SANSÓN (Impulsive Habitat)
Ch-da (d-2). DARIUS CIUTA, CHRIS WHITEHEAD
(Impulsive Habitat)
The Fields Remain While The Recorder Has Long Vanished. D”INCISE (Impulsive Habitat)
Thief. LANCE AUSTIN OLSEN (Infrequency)
Holes / Tract. COPPICE (Consumer Waste)
Like falling out of trees into collectors’ albums. PATRICK FARMER
(Consumer Waste)
The Narrows. JODA CLEMENT (Unfathomless)
Bird cage wallpaper. HANKIL RYU, JEZ RILEY FRENCH
(Engraved Glass)
I treni inerti. ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO, RUTH BARBERÁN
(Flexion)

Roland Etzin (sound artist, works at Gruenrekorder)

Sounds From Dangerous Places. PETER CUSAK (ReR Megacorp)
Dichte Wolken. CHRISTINA KUBISCH (CD Edition Museum Ostwall)
Framework seasonal. VA
v – p v-f is v – n 2013. VA (Winds Measure)

Patrick Farmer (sound artist, writer and Editor for The Field Reporter)

Audio from: I can feel the sea falling over my head. Lost Beyond Telling. DIANE GRANHAN (Oiseaux Invisibles)
Two Films. JOHN GRZINICH (And/Oar)
Binatone Galaxy. STEPHEN CORNFORD (Senufo)
CrossHatches. MICHAEL PISARO, TOSHIYA TSUONDA (Erstwhile)
En Abîme: Listening, Reading, Writing. DANIELA CASCELLA
(Zero Books)
Acquiescence. TARAB (Kaon)
∩. MARC BARON (Cathnor)
Exotic Exit. VANESSA ROSETTO (Kye)
2005¹. MANFRED WERDER -Jason Kahn- (Winds Measure)
Druids and Questions. EVA-MARIA HOUBEN (Wandelweiser)
Luz azul. I TRENI INERTI (Flexion)

Jez Riley French (sound artist works at Engraved Glass)

I would expand the defintion of ‘release’….no, I have to expand it.

One of the reasons I am drawn to field recording is that it doesn’t, can’t & also shouldn’t be expected to operate in the same way as the systems placed around other forms of music.

Even if I were able to think of some releases of field recordings that stood out in some way, that would not represent the act of listening to those works, each time or just the first time. A subtle quality of untouched sound is that it has the power to be fluid, even when fixed onto a release. It can still meld with the listening situation. It isn’t stable.

No ‘release’ (in the conventional sense of the word in this context) comes close to listening in situ to sound, to music created in time by a myriad of sources – audible interplay between species and situation, environment and moment.

I don’t know what the point is in creating field recording based work that isn’t, simply, a small representation of a personal connection to the act of listening. In that sense, the ‘releases’ I have heard and been excited by this year have been the release of one moment following another and another and another….

Flavien Gillié (sound artist, Editor for The Field Reporter)

.

.

Mina. DARIUS CIUTA (Green Field Recordings)
Movement -Holkham-. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)
18-36. MECHA / ORGA (Orila)
Slaughterhouse. DAVID MICHAEL (Gruenrekorder)
Trazadao oculto. JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO (Mandorla)
Little jewel. COLLIN THOMAS (self-release)
TransMongolian ROLAND ETZIN (Gruenrekorder)
Systemic Collapse. JAY-DEA LOPEZ (Impulsive Habitat)
South Gare. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Linear Obsessional)
Witch-hunt. PLEQ, HIROKI SASAJIMA (Taâlem 2012)
Concert for no one. SIMON WHETHAM (Impulsive Habitat)

* Playlist of mix follows list order

Slavek Kwi (sound artist)

HTO. MICHAEL TROMMER (3Leaves)
Harbour. LASSE-MARC RIEK (Herbal International)
Buiti Binafin. FREDERIC NOGRAY (3Leaves)
Ravenscar. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Unfathomless)
IIN. DARIUS CIUTA (Nephogram)

Francisco Lopez (sound artist)

Sounds experienced by him in the Borneo forest, particularly the ones made by leeches, cicadas and monkeys

Jay-Dea Lopez (sound artist, journalist and Editor for The Field Reporter)

.

.

Berlin field. STEVE RODEN (3Leaves)
El pájaro que escucha. DAVID VELEZ (3Leaves)
A quiet position. Locale. VA (impulsive Habitat)
Sceneries from the Castellated Wall. YASUHIRO MORINAGA (Galverna)
Two Films. JOHN GRZINICH (And/OAR)
v – p v-f is v – n 2013. VA (Winds Measure)
Parallel Paths. CELLO + LAPTOP -Edu Comelles & Sara Galán- (Envelope Collective)
Buiti Binafin. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY (3Leaves)
Concert for no one. SIMON WHETHAM (Impulsive Habitat)
Colony. HIROKI SASAJIMA (Impulsive Habitat)

* Playlist of mix follows list order

Frederic Nogray (sound artist)

Frédéric Nogray

Suara Alam Indonesia. DAVE PHILLIPS (Nuun)
Brames (et autres mouvements d’automne).
MARC ET OLIVERI NAMBLARD (Editions Ouïe/Dire)
Movement -Holkham-. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)
Ultrealith. AMT -Slavek Kwi- (Gruenrekorder)
Sempervirent. RODOLPHE ALEXIS (Gruenrekorder)
Ravenscar. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Unfathomless)
Madal öö (shallow night). JOHN GRZINICH (Engraved Glass)
Taurion, trou de lapin. DALE LLOYD (Kaon)
El pájaro que escucha. DAVID VÉLEZ (3Leaves)
Paysage de nuit et de vent. JOËL BLONDEL (Editions Ouïe/Dire)

Juanjo Palacios (sound artist, works at LEA)

South Gare. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Linear Obsessional)
Monographic. DALLAS SIMPSON (LEA ediciones)
Des Lônes et des Pylônes. FLAVIEN GILLIÉ (Green Field)
Camino Parte Primera. EDU COMELLES (Wandering Gear)
Música para Palimpsestos. PACO ROSSIQUE (self-release)
Magic Bus. ZIGO (Impulsive Habitat)
Sueño de una noche de Primavera. MICROPLEX (self-release)
O River. LUÍS ANTERO (Impulsive Habitat)
Re:Fujaco. @C (Galaverna)
Au Sud. HONORÉ FERAILLE (Audio Gourmet)
Beneath Peaks. AUTISTICI (Hibernate Recordings)
Amber Studies. WILL BOLTON (Rural Colours)

Pablo Reche (sound artist)

Psyite. AMT -Slavek Kwi- (Impulsive Habitat)
Novaya Zemlya. THOMAS KÖNER (Touch)
Edgelands. MICHAEL TROMMER (Gruenrekorder)
Systemic Collapse. JAY-DEA LOPEZ (Impulsive Habitat)
Mina. DARIUS CIUTA (Green Field)
Rishikesh. FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC (Unfathomless)
O Rio. LUIS ANTERO (Impulsive Habitat)
Spheres. ISZ (Audiotalaia)
Acquiescence. TARAB (Kaon)
Sonido Descompuesto. DAVID VELEZ (Unfathomless)
El Yunque. DAVID MICHAEL (Impulsive Habitat)
Guts. DANIEL MENCHE (Mego)
Passagen. P16.D4 (Monotype)

Richard Sanderson (sound artist, works at Linear Obsessional)

Recordings of A Crepuscular Event – PHILIP SULIDAE
(Impulsive Habitat)
Gryphea. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Obs)
Efecto Foehn. JUANJO PALACIOS (exp_net)
Il Mysteri. GIOVANNI LAMI (Impulsive Habitat)
Touch.30. VA (Touch)

Yiorgis Sakellariou (Sound artist, works at Echomusic)

Detune in Z sharp. NOKALYPSE (Triple Bath)
Madal öö (shallow night). JOHN GRZINICH (Engraved Glass)
Existent recordings of nonexistent phenomena. RAITIS UPENS (Impulsive Habitat)
57′. DARIUS CIUTA & LUIS ANTERO (Green Field Recordings)
Plotina. SALA (Obs)
Secret Garden ROEL MEELKOP (Oto)
Ravenscar. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Unfathomless)

Cheryl Tipp (Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds at the British Library and Editor for The Field Reporter)

Madal öö. JOHN GRZINICH (Engraved Glass)
El pájaro que escucha. DAVID VÉLEZ (3Leaves)
Sempervirent. RODOLPHE ALEXIS (Gruenrekorder)
The Pier. IAN HOLLOWAY (Quiet World)
El Yunque. DAVID MICHAEL (Impulsive Habitat)
Jhirna Jali. PETER CAELDRIES (Gruenrekorder)
The sea road. ROBERT McFARLANE, CHRIS WATSON (Rivertones)
Estonian string. JEZ RILEY FRENCH (Gruenrekorder)
Witch-hunt. PLEQ, HIROKI SASAJIMA (Taâlem 2012)
Mall muzak. SIMON WHETHAM (Unfathomless)
O river. LUÍS ANTERO (Impulsive Habitat)
Camino, parte primera. EDU COMELLES (Wandering Ear)
La tierruca. JUAN PABLO MARTINEZ (LEA)
Rio Douro / Douro River, Vol 2. VIRGILIO OLIVEIRA (Green Field)
Movement -Holkham-. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)

Peter Toll (sound artist)

Buti Binafin. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY (3leaves)
Five natural pieces. VELJO RUNNEL (Veljo Runnel)
From shore to santuary. MARK BRENNAN (Mark Brennan)
El Yunque DAVID MICHAEL (Impulsive Habitat)
Kinsendael. FLAVIEN GILLIE (Audio Gormet)
Instamatic: snowdonia. JEZ RILEY FRENCH (Engraved Glass)
[Dis] location. JASON KAVANAGH, JAY-DEA LOPEZ (Sirona)
A Quiet Position. VA -curated by Jez Riley French- (Impulsive Habitat)

Michael Trommer (sound artist)

CrossHatches. MICHAEL PISARO, TOSHIYA TSUONDA (Erstwhile)
Lonely Microphone. JOE COLLEY (Senufo)
Saison Concrete. LASSE-MARC RIEK (Semperflorens)
Novaya Zemlya. THOMAS KÖNER(Touch)
The Narrows. JODA CLEMENT (Unfathomless)
17 / Barcelona. 18 / Corfu. MIKEL R NIETO (self-release)
El gris en nuestras vidas. GIL SANSÓN (Impulsive Habitat)
The Fields Remain While The Recorder Has Long Vanished. D”INCISE (Impulsive Habitat)
Ultrealith. AMT -Slavek Kwi- (Gruenrekorder)
Mic.Madeira. SIMON WHETHAM, HUGO OLIM (Crónica)

David Velez (sound artists, work at Impulsive Habitat and Chief Editor for The Field Reporter)

.

.

Ordered as they first came to my mind

Madal öö. JOHN GRZINICH (Engraved Glass)
Prairie. D’INCISE (Obs)
Gryphaea. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Obs)
H-CS. DARIUS CIUTA (Echomusic)
Silver. RICHARD GARET (Obs)
Are fishes nihilist? D’INCISE (Kaon)
18-36. MECHA / ORGA (Orila)
Taurion, trou de lapin. DALE LLOYD (Kaon)
Debris. JANA WINDEREN (Touch)
A while and awhile. FRANCISCO MEIRINO (Obs)
Glass over water under light.
RUI ALMEIDA, NUNO MIRANDA RIBEIRO (Green Field)
Sempervirent. RODOLPHE ALEXIS (Gruenrekorder)
Deux trois choses ou presque. BRUNO DUPLANT (Engraved Glass)
Little jewel. COLLIN THOMAS (self-release)
Mina. DARIUS CIUTA (Green Field)
Draught. MATT EARLE, JASON KAHN, ADAM SUSSMAN
(Consumer Waste)
Rishikesh. FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC (Unfathomless)
Go Outside. ROBERT CURGENVEN (Kaon)
The Darkness and the light. SETH COOKE (Compost and Height)
n.RioTau. ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (Kaon)

Also -in alphabetical order

Emerging territories. LUIS ANTERO, JAY-DEA LOPEZ (LEA)
Jhirna Jali. PETER CAELDRIES (Gruenrekorder)
Trazadao oculto. JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO (Mandorla)
U-pdd-f. DARIUS CIUTA (self-release)
Pneuma. SETH COOKE (LF)
Holes / Tract. COPPICE (Consumer Waste)
КОРЛИГОН. DAUBY, KOJO, NORTHAM (Obs)
Quelques usines fantômes. BRUNO DUPLANT (Unfathomless)
TransMongolian ROLAND ETZIN (Gruenrekorder)
Encore Un Peu De Ce Monde. FLAVIEN GILLIÉ (self-release)
The good life. SARAH HUGES, KOSTIS KILMYS
(Consumer Waste)
34:13_Ambeliona MECHA / ORGA (Triple Bath)
53-30. MECHA / ORGA (Very Quiet)
split. WILL MONTGOMERY, ROBERT CURGENVEN
(Winds Measure)
What Are The Roots That Clutch. MURMER (Helen Scarsdale Agency)
Buiti Binafin. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY (3Leaves)
Sunset soundrise. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY (Very Quiet)
Paradise and Winchester. YANN NOVACK (Unafathomless)
-split- MARK SO, PATRICK FARMER (Winds Measure)
Bird cage wallpaper. HANKIL RYU, JEZ RILEY FRENCH
(Engraved Glass)
Shards of Splinters… TARAB (Semperflorens)
Movement -Holkham-. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)
Ravenscar. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Unfathomless)
South gare. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Linear Obsessional)
Lind, raud, aastaajad.
YANNICK DAUBY, JOHN GRZINICH, MURMER (Invisible Birds)

Reissues

The bright work. JEZ RILEY FRENCH (Engraved Glass)

Older but istened on 2012

Ulu lone. YANNICK DAUBY, MARC LAMBLARD (Silent Radio 2006)
蛙蛙蛙！Songs of the frogs of Taiwan vol.1. YANNICK DAUBY
(Kalerne 2009)
[in]. ERIK DeLUCA (Everglade 2010)
Like falling out of trees into collectors’ albums. PATRICK FARMER
(Consumer Waste 2011)
Four objects. JEZ RILEY FRENCH (Engraved Glass 2011)
Taî-pak thiaⁿ saⁿ piàn. YANNICK DAUBY (Kalerne 2011)
Shangri La. DAVID MICHAEL (3Leaves 2011)
Birds and water 2 & 3. BEN OWEN (Obs 2011)
Frozen moments. JACQUES SODELL (Kaon 2011)
Acquiescence. TARAB (Kaon 2011)

* Playlist of mix presents only the releases in the first list and they are ordered from lower to higher.
Jana Winderen release not featured on playlist.

Tony Whithead (sound artist, works at Very Quiet)

Ravenscar. CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Unfathomless)
Rishikesh. FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC (Unfathomless)
Like falling out of trees into collectors’ albums. PATRICK FARMER (Consumer Waste)
Undetected. FRANCISCO MEIRINO (OtO)
Panaural. JOAO CASTRO PINTO (Triple Bath)
40:31. MECHA / ORGA (Impulsive Habitat)
Three Days of Silence. PIETRO RIPARBELLI (Gruenrekorder)
Buiti Binafin. FREDERIC NOGRAY (3Leaves)
Movement -Holkham-. PETER TOLL (Engraved Glass)
Radia. GLEN BACH (Dust Unsettled)

A few shared sounds I’ve enjoyed …
Take the ear strangely: songs and dead seas. SEBASTIANE HEGARTY
Cycle Race. MICHAEL PETERS
Opus for power line, bass, wind and birds. MAGNUS BERGSSON
Geese #02. PATRICK FRANKE
Orkney WW2 Wrecks (Test). AMES NEWTON

203

Gefiederte Meistersänger (Feathered Mastersingers).
LUDWIG KOCH
(Brühlscher Verlag Giessen 1935)

Review by Cheryl Tipp

Ludwig Koch was almost certainly the first field recordist to make wildlife recordings using a microphone. Having begun his career in the days when acoustic recording was the only option available, Koch was thrilled to begin experimenting with electric recording in the field. Early efforts were greated with success and outputs included the 1934 sound book ‘Der Wald Erschallt’ (‘The Wood Resounds’). This double-sided disc dedicated one side to the extensive vocabulary of the Red Deer and the other to a montage or “sound-picture” of thirteen birds. One of the finest features of this montage is a recording of the song of the Golden Oriole. Koch’s delight at making this early electric recording is beautifully summarised in his autobiography ‘Memoirs of a Birdman’:

“The town (Spandau) was overshadowed by its prison and Prussian barracks, but there was freedom where I was watching and waiting, and when, above the music of all the other birds, there arose the song of the Golden Oriole, my heart overflowed with joy.”

Encouraged by the success of these initial experiments, Koch was eager to start building a comprehensive collection of wild bird recordings by electrical means. Together with the prominent ornithologist, Oskar Heinroth, Koch embarked on an ambitious project to record the songs & calls of twenty-five common German birds and release these in the form of a sound book. Despite weeks of extensive preparations, which seemed so achievable and efficient on paper, Koch and his small team of engineers from the Carl Lindström Company faced many obstacles.

“It took us weeks to get the sound to come through the microphone and the cables, and any humidity caused a short circuit.”

Even the logistics of transporting the recording equipment to the desired location was a challenge; difficult terrain sometimes meant that a mile of cable was required to link the microphone with the recorder, a method which exacerbated problems such as short circuits. Never one to throw in the towel, Koch and his team persevered and overcame each hurdle that nature put in front of them. His first success came in the form of the song and calls of the Siskin, but this small triumph was tempered by another short circuit which rendered the machinery unusable for the next few days. Despite this series of setbacks, Koch eventually reached his target of twenty-five species. A total of three hundred and eighty wax discs had been used to achieve this.

In the autumn of 1935, Koch and Heinroth saw their project realised when ‘Gefiederte Meistersänger’ was published. This attractive sound book comprised three double-sided 78rpm discs and an accompanying book which devoted a chapter to each of the twenty-five species whose voices could be heard on the records. From the comfort of their homes, people could listen to and learn how to identify the sounds of some of Germany’s most celebrated songsters. The fluting song of the Blackbird sat alongside the Skylark’s unbroken stream of melodious notes and the Nightingale’s strident advertisement of his vocal talents. The popularity of ‘Gefiederte Meistersänger’ was such that a second volume was published two years later, at which point Koch had fled his native Germany and embarked on new recording adventures in Britain. This publication has a firm place in the history of commercial wildlife sound recording however, being the first comprehensive audio identification guide to bring together both audio and written resources for the general public to use and enjoy.

Ludwig Koch info at The Avibus Historiae

195

[in]. ERIK DeLUCA
(Everglade 2010)

Review by John McEnroe

I have heard and reviewed a variety of hydrophone recordings-based releases through the past two years and it amazes me how artistic experimentation and research can lead to new and surprising results.

[in] is a 2010 release by Florida based artist Erik DeLuca published by Everglade the label that published  [re] by Stephen Vitiello in collaboration with Benjamin Broening, Mark Applebaum, John Gibson and Larry Polansky back on on 2006.

[in] is a 40-minute release composed by 9 individual pieces, a format that works quite well for the different individual tracks and for the totality of the work.

On an initial listen one the aspects that I found most interesting here is how the sufrace sounds captured with the hydrophones blend with the underwater sounds, presenting a notion of inside-outside that puts the listener on a very ambiguous and ever-changing place.

On a further listen an aspect that is very relevant is that DeLuca purposely on indadvertedly focused on two kind of sounds: First the sounds produced by a variety of animal species such as crustaceans, fishes, dolphins and snails, and second the sounds of boats and even a cruise ship. It’s impossible not to find a political sense on this formal considerations: we have the animals in one side and the human machinery on the other but we also have them together in some sort of complex coexistence. The effects of human intervention in nature-prevailing environments reflects on a variety of biological aspects that have an echoe in the acoustic end: this echo is what DeLuca successfully and pertinently addressed with his recordings.

The two kind of sounds that the release seems to work around, are captured on a noteworthy manner as they seem to occur way in the foreground: we hear them in such detailed way that we can perceive every little aspect of them in terms of their shapes, textures, friction and movement. This helps for the the listener to be transported to a universe where scales and densities sound in a way they don’t sound like on quotidian listening; the change in the way things sound like derives after a few minutes into a change in the way we perceive things and this is the magic of this release: the capacity to generate in the listener a momentarily change of perception beyond any rational and technical factors.

The political aspect emerges strongly at the end of the release when in 9 the loud and harsh sound of a cruise ship enters the scene to finally fade out. I could say this was articulated as some sort of cautionary tale that warns that doom and gloom awaits for us at the end of the vector line that the technological notion of progress is drawing.

The political and perceptual aspects of this release makes it a very successful one that also rewards the listener with a very compelling formal and aesthetic experience.

[Erik DeLuca]

Erik DeLuca website
Everglade website

194

Buiti Binafin. FRÉDÉRIC NOGRAY
(3Leaves 2012)

Review by John McEnroe

Some times I want to listen to the sounds of the rain forest. Sometimes it’s be the best I can do to be fully or acousmatically transported away from the quotidian sounds that just potentialize the often boring and stressful character of my every day existence.

The cars, my house, people talking, the TV, the telephone…

Through the last three months I visited forest areas near my city way more often than usual. It becomes an incredible experience to be by yourself in the middle of all this nature, quietly listening to this multitude of sounds forcing the perception to multiple focus and finding some pleasure and meaning on that.

On the quest to visit the rain forest while in my house in the middle of a concrete jungle I found ’Buiti Binafin’ which immediately managed to transport me there. This is truly one of the potentials of field recording based music, the potential to transport the listener somewhere else whether it’s to the Antartica or to a shoes factory.

By recording the rain forest and the vast bio-diversity found there, the artist is addressing the power of nature in terms of is complexity. By playing back this recordings he plays the role of a distorting medium, a messenger of an ever- fading message. In a way the artist always mimics the nature but he is only successful when he ‘becomes’ the nature, when he finds ways to mimic the nature as a power, as a vector of strength and magnitude.

Why would the artist try to act as he was the nature?

Because only the nature and its forces helps establishing the sense of immeasurable magnitude and incompressible complexity that derive in an emotion we can refer to as the sublime.

The sublime seems to be an emotion that triggers many phonographic based works. This contact with the magnitude and power of the nature leaves a track, a void that the sound artist fills with his memory imprinted on the tape or the memory card.

In despite of its phonographic character the listener could ponder the artist’s craft in ‘Buiti Binafin’ at least through the fact that there is a rational and emotional structure throughout the work: the pice starts with loud sound of waves that later return through the end. All across the lengthy middle the listener enters a long fragment where he could hear mostly sounds made by animals. The artist’s craft can also be sensed on what seems like juxtaposition of sounds on some fragments of the release.

The formal results in ‘Buiti Binafin’ are quite compelling, the sounds are fully believable and the whole emotional atmosphere he manages to build has this ‘sublime’ character that sets up a scenario for sensible and intellectual craving.

In regard of the question ‘to edit and juxtapose or not to’ in phonographic based composition some can say who cares, but for some artists it can be a puzzling question.

The line that divides documental phonography and music concrete can be rather blur for the listener. Anyway the intention to document and the intention to manipulate material are very different.

Frédéric Nogray seems to have found a balanced point here: the listener can sense the derive and natural order of things. But when the edition is visible we can tell there is something he wants to say or point out to. Personally I think he is interested in the power of nature depicted in contrast: movement and the stillness, violence and the calm, harmony and the noise.

When one reads the ‘Buiti Binafin’ liner notes one can tell Frédéric Nogray spend long hours in the the jungle probably being very quiet while watching the nature do its thing. His role here exemplifies the role of the artist who feels that being a medium is ethically his only choice.

Then when he returned home, the forest stopped being the subject, now his experience, his memories of the forest became the subject, and in this process he also turns from being a quiet observer to be the action himself. He becomes ‘the creator’, he becomes a force in the universe.

‘Buiti Binafin’ puts on the table the metaphoric character of recording sounds as a way to capture time. Recordings sounds is a useless and yet essential exercise in order to poetically deal with the ineffable character of the universe and the emotional meaning we get when we have an experience with it.

[Frederic Nogray]

Frédéric Nogray website
3Leaves website

193

Interview with David Michael

Interview by Chris Whitehead

‘The slaughter house’ is a controversial phonographic release composed by sound artist David Michael and published by german label Gruenrekorder. On this work the artist captured sounds on a slaughterhouse in Alabama which on an initial sight could be a rather difficult subject to address in terms of the ethical and moral aspects involved. Intrigued by this release, our editor Chris Whitehead interviewed the artist about this work and here we have the answers. We would like to thank David Michael for his time and interest in our questions.

-Alan Smithee

Q (Chris Whitehead). From what point of view did you set out to record Slaughterhouse?

A (David Michael). Originally I was interested in making a ‘nature recording’, but from the perspective of a part of nature that is typically ignored in the genre, specifically themes of death and the like. Much of the time all you hear is lush springtime choruses, ultra-quiet idyllic soundscapes, life in full bloom.

Q. It begins with birds.

A. It does – I suppose I was trying, not too subtly, to set the contrast.

Q. It also ends with going back to nature.

A. This decision was perhaps more compositional. It was actually how my own experience there ended (and began for that matter), but it also ties together the record – idyllic nature on either side of dismemberment.

Q. I notice there are no pictures in the packaging.

A. I was told very specifically that I was not allowed to photograph or video. The owners and butchers were deeply paranoid about PETA showing up and giving them grief. Apparently it had happened before. They thought that any pictures would lead PETA or other activists right to their door, so I didn’t take any.

Q. Why did they agree for you to record then? Was a lot of persuasion involved?

A. There was very little persuasion, I called up the establishment and talked with the owner who said I could record. It really was that simple.

Q. Was it difficult to watch?

A. At first yes, but it’s not shocking. It’s natural, like having a baby or something like that. It makes me think about when my son was born – seeing him for the first time – it was like “oh yeah, of course”. 

As far as I can tell, ‘slaughter’ is as old as human civilization itself. On a deeper level, all carnivores kill, and while humans are not strictly carnivores, we are certainly part of this system of devouring other living things.

Q. It didn’t put you off meat?

A. Not at all, in fact we went out to lunch mid-day for a BBQ. It’s not because we are totally insensitive, it’s because that’s what people do. Well, not all of us, obviously.

Q. During the recording you say the line between life and death is fuzzy. I found that intriguing.

A. Me too! They disagreed with me, but the cow (which they called ‘beef’) was still alive in many ways. It was not consciously alive as the bullet to the brain knocked out that system, but the other systems were still mildly functional. The heart still beat until there was no more blood.

Q. Kind of electrical muscular activity?

A. Oh definitely. The muscles twitched, skin shook, the systems were not working well together any more, but much of the animal was still alive, and I assume remained so until the freezer.

Q. There’s a bit where the guy says ‘don’t get brave and step in there will you?’, and you go ‘absolutely not’.

A. Yeah, he warned me that after they put down an animal it still can get violent and kick and whatnot. I had approached her really close after he shot her, which really agitated him. I think he saw it as disrespectful, which in hindsight it probably was.

Q. To whom?

A. The animal.

Q. I can’t quite grasp the relationship between the men and the animals?

A. I can’t either. The father seemed less conflicted about it, less analytical. I actually think that the young man’s faith led him to some hard internal questions. He told me stories about how others in the community had called him a murderer. These are folks at his church, but this was his family’s profession, for better or worse. It’s not like there are loads of job options in this area and honestly, i don’t know that he wanted to do anything else. He was very good at this job, he was trained by his father.

Q. The religion, the blood and the death conjour up a gothic atmosphere, or is that too simplistic?

A. Not simplistic at all. One of the aspects of this recording that I had not bargained for is that it is so sparse. The process is almost entirely visual,  really the only thing that is left for the listener is their own mind. The religious aspects were completely unplanned.  I had no idea the young man would be so devout – evangelical even. The other thing I came to realize is that for these men, this is a daily affair.

Q. There is a lot of hosing down of hard surfaces.

A. Yes, there was a lot of blood, fluid, dirt and excrement. The hose is essential in cleaning up the beef. The animals very literally just arrive from the field with all the earthly contamination you might expect. Customers would drive them up in trailers.

During the day they slaughtered 2 animals, a cow and a young buffalo, both females. I was not allowed to watch them putting the buffalo down. They used a very high powered gun and the owner didn’t want me around.

Q. Do we hear the buffalo shot as you walk away on the last track?

A. Yep – that’s the one. That one actually really freaked me out. I think it was not being able to see what was happening that made it different, but after they shot the buffalo I found myself really shaken.

When it’s something you are involved in, it’s rational, it’s natural. When you are not involved, it’s execution. This may be like anything – when you are a part of something, you can rationalize it. When you are not a part of it, you critique it – in this case I can see how it’s easy to get activist about slaughter when you have not been a part of it. I actually don’t have a position on the morality of eating meat.

Q. So should listeners file this under nature recordings?

A. I find it surprising that anyone would listen to it at all, in fact, I feel like the idea of the recording is enough – I could probably have left it as a conceptual piece. I think you will find that the nature recordists would squarely reject this as a nature recording, which is fine. The content is not really in line with the genre, though the inspiration for the recording was directly from the genre.

[David Michael photo courtesy of Impulsive Habitat]

David Michael website

191

The Birth of Wildlife Sound Recording

Research by Cheryl Tipp

For our 191th post we publish the entire research text written by our editor Cheryl Tipp (Wildlife Sounds Curator at the British Library) for our journal in regard of the origins of wildlife sound recordings that was published in five volumes earlier this year.

PART I

Ludwig Koch is described as the father of wildlife sound recording and is arguably the greatest pioneer in this field. He made the first ever recording of a bird in 1889, at the tender age of eight, when his father brought home an Edison Phonograph and a box of cylinders. The subject of Koch’s experiment was his pet Indian Shama, a species whose rich, melodious song made it a popular cage bird. Koch would go on to play a significant role in the development of wildlife sound recording, but the credit for producing the first ever commercial wildlife recording would go to fellow German, Carl Reich.

In 1910 the German branch of the Gramophone Company released ‘Actual Bird Record made by a Captive Nightingale’. The list of new records published by the Gramophone Co. Ltd in August 1910 described the recorded Nightingale as being a famed songster that was “taken about through Germany by its proud possessor for show purposes”. The bird in question belonged to canary breeder and bird collector, Carl Reich, who kept an aviary in Bremen, Germany and was to have a recording career that spanned almost thirty years. Eight separate recordings of the Nightingale were collected by audio engineer Max Hampe, who had travelled to Reich’s base in May 1910 to conduct this acoustic experiment. Each recording was originally released in Germany in single-sided form and copies were soon available in many European countries, including the United Kingdom, as well as the USA, Russia and even Australia (Figure 1).

The Gramophone Co. Ltd actually explained the recording process in their list of 1910, which reinforces the significance of this recording achievement. According to the promotional passage, “The cage was suspended in front of the horn, and as soon as the recording motor was set in motion, the bird began singing and did not stop when it should, as will be seen by the last note of the record, which clearly shows the bird went on singing after the instrument stopped recording.”

Reich was to dominate the commercial arm of wildlife sound recording for the next decade, with further recordings of singing Nightingales being released in 1912. The scope of this publishing programme was then widened and other birds in Reich’s collection were recorded. Successful takes were published by the Gramophone Company and Zonophone, with titles such as ‘Actual Bird Record made by a Captive Thrush’ (1913) and ‘Duet: Mock Nightingale, Garden Warbler’ (1926) being released in several countries.

The birds of Reich’s recordings were all chosen based on their reputation as versatile and talented songsters. Species such as the Nightingale, Blackbird and Domestic Canary are renowned for their sustained singing bouts and the variation, tonal quality and frequency of these songs would clearly make these popular recording subjects for both the engineers charged with recording the songs and the public listener.

For the first time ever, people could listen to a recording of an actual bird, albeit a captive one, from the comfort of their own home. This moment signified the birth of a completely new variety of sound recording for the commercial market and presented a fresh way of appreciating wildlife. No longer did the natural history hobbyist have to make do with a collection of monographs, illustrations or inanimate specimens. Sound recordings of wildlife had now come onto the scene and there was to be no looking back.

PART II

Recording in the Wild

Cherry Kearton was responsible for the first recordings of wild birds when he captured the song of a Nightingale and a few phrases from a Song Thrush in England in 1900.

The first commercial recordings of a wild animal came about, not through the tireless work of a naturalist, but through the suggestion of a musician. Beatrice Harrison was a respected British cellist who had made broadcasting history in 1924 when the sounds of her playing alongside a wild Nightingale in Oxted, Surrey were transmitted live by the BBC. Harrison believed the Nightingales were stimulated by the sound of her cello and the popularity of this first broadcast led to several similar programmes being made over the next few years.  The Gramophone Company agreed to publish a selection of pieces featuring Beatrice Harrison with “her” Nightingales and in May 1927 the label’s mobile van recorded what would become five double-sided discs that were widely circulated around the world. We will never know whether the birds were encouraged to sing by Harrison’s cello or were simply delivering their musical messages at times of the day when they would be most vocally active anyway. What we do know is that these recordings represent another key landmark in the history of wildlife sound recording.

Novelty Acts and Canary Choirs

The tradition of keeping canaries as cage birds is a long one. Their strong, varied songs and penchant for imitation made them extremely desirable as pets. The German canary trade was one of the most respected in Europe and birds reared in Germany were highly sort after. Richard Avis said in his book of 1872, ‘The Canary: its history, varieties, management, and breeding, “The Germans, who care little for either the form or colour of their birds, pay great attention to their song and we advise all those who wish to fully develop the good qualities of young canaries to place them under the tuition of a German bird.”

Carl Reich kept canaries in his Bremen aviary and several of these birds were recorded for publication. In some cases, the canary recordings were combined with folk songs and these records from the late 1920s represent some of the earliest examples of fusion between music and wildlife recordings for the commercial market.

Musical Dawson’s Famous Choir of Canaries became the star ingredient of eleven records released in the UK from 1932 – 1933. Dawson’s singing canaries were recorded and then mixed with a pre-recorded small orchestra to create unique versions of ‘The Blue Danube’, ‘O Sole Mio’ and ‘Tales of Hoffman’ among others. A wonderful British Pathé newsreel film from 1938 showed Musical Dawson accompanied by a choir of nine caged canaries while he played ‘In a Monastary Garden’.

In the USA, Lorraine Evon & The Golden Bird became a popular Vaudeville act in the 1920s. A photograph of the young Miss Evon posing with the canary perched on the end of her violin can be found in the photographic collection of the drama critic and theatre promoter James Willis Sayre, who collected images of stars performing in Seattle from around 1900 to 1955. Brunswick released a double-sided record of the duo in 1930, which featured ‘The Canary Polka’ and ‘The Birds and the Brook’ (Figure 2).

An equivalent music hall act in Britain was The Auklands and Little Tweet. Little Tweet was dubbed the ‘Canary Caruso’ in light of his vocal virtuosity and skill, and the Auklands toured the music hall circuit from 1924 onwards. The singing canary would accompany Betty Aukland on the concertina and proved to be such an entertaining act that a record of Little Tweet performing ‘Bells of St Mary’s’ and Londonderry Air’ with the Auklands was released by Edison Bell in 1929. This feathered performer became quite the celebrity and was used in marketing campaigns to endorse products such as Capern’s bird food.

PART III

Mimicry

The focus of the first wildlife publications was, unsurprisingly, birdsong. Each disc would normally contain one uninterrupted recording of a singing bird (or one on each side for double-sided discs), which had been selected based on the aesthetic nature of its song. No additional information was offered explaining the role of birdsong in the life of a species, and only the most pleasing vocalisations were deemed worthy of publication.

Within a few years the evolution of this genre had begun to slowly gain momentum and it wasn’t long before publishers and recordists recognised the potential for expansion and began to look beyond the simple beauty of birdsong. Sound recording could be used to demonstrate various elements of acoustic communication and in doing so, could add a scientific element to the listening experience.

Reich had touched briefly on the subject of mimicry in birdsong when ‘Canary – taught to sing like a Nightingale’ was published in 1913. The first dedicated study of mimicry appeared almost two decades later when ‘The Song of the Lyrebird’ was released in Australia. ‘The Song of the Lyrebird’ (1932), recorded under the supervision of amateur film maker Ray Littlejohns, included a spoken commentary which guided the listener through the various imitations performed by a Superb Lyrebird. This species has long been considered one of the finest songsters to be found in Australia and its ability to mimic other sounds is second to none This record was also significant because the songs featured on this disc were the first ever recordings to be made in the Australian bush of a wild bird in its natural habitat. This talented individual mimicked species such as the Kookaburra, Australian Thrush and Eastern Whipbird to perfection and as both the natural and imitated songs produced by the Superb Lyrebird are pleasant to listen to, this clearly made the song an ideal recording subject. The repertoire of other notable mimics such as the Northern Mockingbird of North America would be used to create similar records that celebrated mimicry in birdsong over the coming years.

The ability of particular cage birds to accurately mimic the human voice led to several gramophone records being published in the early – mid 20^th century. Hearing a Budgerigar recite nursery rhymes or give his home address created a novel listening experience and seemed to capture the curiosity of the general public. The vast majority of publications focused on one individual, for example ‘Billy Peach, the Talking Budgerigar’ (1940) and ‘Joey the Budgie’ (1952), but “I’ll Give you Talk Like This” (1938) included several short excerpts of talking birds.

The most famous talking Budgerigar of them all was Sparkie Williams. This incredible Guinness World Record holder was said to have a vocabulary of more than five hundred words and won the BBC International Cage Word Contest in 1958. His winning performance led to a record being produced of edited dialogue between himself and a human interviewer (Philip Marsden) which is quite something even today. His owner was Newcastle-born Mattie Williams who applied an almost military approach to Sparkie’s vocal training. When listening to ‘Sparkie Williams, the 1958 Champion Talking Budgerigar’, traces of his Geordie accent are clearly audible.

PART IV

Vocabulary and the meaning of sounds

In 1934 Ludwig Koch and Lutz Heck (Director of the Berlin Zoological Gardens) worked together on the first commercial publication to focus on the vocabulary of a specific mammal. One side of ‘Der Wald Erschallt’ was completely devoted to the various call types of the Red Deer. Koch and Heck were possibly taking a risk by focusing on this species because, unlike birds, mammals are not renowned for the musicality or attractiveness of their vocalisations. The popular appeal and obvious market for birdsong may have contributed to the decision to feature a montage of thirteen birds, including the much beloved Golden Oriole, Nightingale and Song Thrush, on the opposite side of this disc.

Documenting a species’ vocabulary incorporated an important scientific element into the publication as it illustrated that animals could utilise many different vocalisations to express specific functions and meanings. Possibly the best example of this was ‘Animal Language’, a sound book by Ludwig Koch and the evolutionary biologist Sir Julian Huxley in 1938. The publication was constructed in such a way that the disc complimented the book and vice versa, and neither could be fully appreciated without the other. This unison of text, image and sound created the first detailed consideration of animal behaviour available to the general public, with particular emphasis placed on the importance of acoustic communication within the animal kingdom. It also allowed the authors to explain the process of wildlife sound recording with all of its challenges and requirements. Ludwig Koch travelled around Whipsnade and London Zoos for several months in late 1937 – early 1938 using a portable recording studio in the form of a seven ton van. A microphone connected to a long lead would be attached to the required enclosure, meaning that the van could be positioned out of view so as not to disturb the animal in question. The book contains a wonderful passage that will resonate with all wildlife recordists and tells the tale of Koch’s attempts to record wolves at Whipsnade. Huxley wrote “The wolf pack at Whipsnade can only be described as disobliging. As the head keeper explained, the wolves usually start their concerted howling when they hear a particular siren which goes at five each afternoon. But when the microphone was put in position, the siren failed to elicit any response. The wolves looked towards Mr Koch, who was standing by it, with a sort of sly defiance, but remained entirely mute”. One can sympathise.

PART V

Identification Guides

 The sole function of the earliest published wildlife recordings was to entertain and amaze the listener and this general purpose was sustained until the early 1930s when the first identification guides came onto the market. The role of the identification guide was to aid both the amateur and professional ornithologist in learning to recognise the songs and calls of commonly heard species. The first collection of wild bird recordings to be brought together on one disc was ‘Bird Songs Recorded from Nature’ by Albert. R. Brand and M. Peter Keane, released in the USA in 1931. Brand came to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 1929 after leaving his job as a broker on the New York Stock Exchange. Studying ornithology under the lab’s founder, Dr Arthur Allen, allowed Brand to pursue his interest in sound recording and together with undergraduate Peter Keane, they began to build up a collection of American bird voices. Cornell would go on to produce notable North American field guides such as the six disc set ‘American Bird Songs’ which was released in 1942.

Another pioneer field recordist was the self-taught Danish ornithologist Carl Weismann. During his lifetime, Weismann recorded a wealth of material and published a number of recordings, many through his own record label. In the early 1930s, Weismann approached the recently founded Dansk Stats Radiofonien (Danish State Radio) and enquired as to whether they possessed equipment that would be suitable for recording wildlife in the field. As wildlife sound recording was still largely unexplored at the time, Weismann must have put forward a convincing argument because the following spring saw him setting up dynamic microphones in the Danish countryside. Microphone signals were transmitted to a radio studio via telegraph wires which ran alongside a railway line and cut into wax discs which would later be used to create permanent records of Weismann’s efforts. The Thrush Nightingale was the first species to be immortalised using this method and many more birds were to follow over the coming years.

Five discs were published as an untitled set at the end of 1934 and distributed to schools across Denmark. Weismann would go on to compile an impressive collection of wildlife recordings, many of which were published on the Carl Weismann record label. ‘Voice Recordings of Danish Birds’ was a collection of eleven discs released from 1939-1955, which featured 66 species and introduced the concept of geographical variation within the songs of birds such as the Yellowhammer and Chaffinch.

Weismann produced other identification guides that covered a range of birds, mammals and amphibians as well as discs specifically aimed at children. Weismann’s singing dog orchestra is perhaps his best known achievement outside of the ornithological community, with ‘The Singing Dogs’ making it to number 22 on the Billboard chart in 1955.

Ludwig Koch had begun his wildlife recording career in Germany, working with Berlin Zoological Gardens Director, Lutz Heck, on ‘Schrei der Steppe’ (1933) and ‘Der Wald Erschallt’ (1934). In 1935 Koch worked with ornithologist Dr Oskar Heinroth on ‘Gefiederte Meistersänger’, which comprised three double-sided discs featuring the songs and, in several cases, the calls of twenty five German birds. The discs were accompanied by a ninety-six page illustrated book which provided in depth information on each species. A second three disc volume was released by Heinroth in 1937, at which point Koch had fled Nazi Germany and taken up residence in the UK.

Shortly after his arrival, Koch was introduced to the well known publisher Harry Witherby, and alongside ornithologist Max Nicholson, the trio began work on a sound guide to the voices of common British birds. ‘Songs of Wild Birds’ was released in 1936 (Figure 3) and was the first of several notable identification guides to be championed by Koch. ‘More Songs of Wild Birds’ was released in 1937 and the four disc set ‘Songs of British Birds’ appeared in 1953. This guide, produced in collaboration with the BBC, was the first to group species according to habitat.

The Swedish Broadcasting Corporation (Radiojanst, then Sveriges Radio), began a programme of natural history location recording at the beginning of 1925. The aim was to compile a collection of Swedish bird recordings for broadcasts and publication that would encourage a greater appreciation and interest in the natural world. The first publications to be compiled were a series of five double-sided discs that featured twenty three common bird species including the Skylark, Blackbird and Cuckoo. The discs were prepared specifically for Swedish schools and were available by December 1937. A Marconi steel tape recorder was used to make these initial recordings as it allowed up to thirty minutes of uninterrupted recording. Useful segments from that thirty minute window of sound could then be copied on to disc.

In 1938, Radiojanst obtained its first mobile recording van and this signalled the beginning of an immense recording programme undertaken by Gunnar Lekander and Sture Palmér which resulted in no less than sixty five discs containing the voices of one hundred eighty three species being released from 1938 to 1956.

Tsuruhiko Kabaya and Kasuke Hoshino were responsible for the first published collection of bird sounds from the Palearctic region to be recorded outside Europe. ‘Japanese Bird Songs’ was published in 1954 by the Japanese Victor Company and comprised nine discs of vocalisations and general bird choruses.

Witherby’s Sound-Guide to British Birds was the greatest achievement in avian identification guides when it was published in 1958. The compilation consisted of thirteen double-sided discs featuring one hundred ninety four species (over three hundred individual recordings) and became the first comprehensive guide to British bird vocalisations. Myles North and Eric Simms (the then Director of wildlife sound recording projects at the BBC) co-authored the set and together produced one of the finest natural history publications ever released. Broadcaster and naturalist James Fisher described the collection as being “a milestone on the golden road of ornithology” and represented “the most important instrument for the advance of our art, sport and science that has been made since the Handbook of British Birds appeared in 1938-41.”

 The Demise of the 78

After a life span of around fifty years, the 78 rpm disc was gradually replaced by newer formats that offered features such as improved signal to noise ratio, wider frequency and dynamic range, longer playing times and increased substrate flexibility. By 1960 the gramophone record was largely out of production and the era of the 78 had come to an end.

Commercial wildlife recordings have their place in the history of recorded sound and are as valid as any other genre when it comes to documenting technological developments, expressing the change in popular tastes and demonstrating the continued evolution of an audio field.

London Library Wildlife Sound Archive website

186

The Field Reporter Radio #12
‘Tiempo inmanente’
by David Velez

Piece composed with recordings captured on August of 2012

Photo: Lina Velandia

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David Velez website