[STR 012] WLD 2014 – Fragility

Sound is ephemeral, fragile, uncanny. It’s a mystery, ghostly scaffolding of reality. Sound is hidden but present, real but imaginary, eloquent but silent. Field recording is an art of details, a way of not only navigating trough the sonic space formed by objects, but also the space that an object features, its texture and form, its subtlety and detail. A matter of definition, a game of perception. Soundscapes are microsonic, sound atmospheres are ethereal and the sonic complexity is constantly dreaming within the clouds of audio data.

Photo by Lewis Gilbert.

Recordings:

  1. Anochecer en peguerinos, by Manuel Calurano (Spain) – Recording of Sierra de Guadarrama – Peguerinos (Ávila), 24-05-2014 22:15.
  2. Bowker Creek (Three Movements), by Cimarron Corpé (Victoria, BC, Canada) – This recording captures the flow of water at three points beneath the surface of Bowker Creek. The creek is one of several urban waterways in and around Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The watershed is largely developed and the creek has been subjected to extensive channel modification with 75% of the creek passing through underground storm drains and culverts. I made this recording to draw attention to the importance of water in general and urban waterways in particular. Captured with a binaural stereo microphone.
  3. Thirteen Spaces, by Alan Dormer (Ireland) – The recordings are taken from a recent dance film shoot. Using a ringing bowl as the signal to the dancers/movers that the scene has both started and ended I have taken each strike and the length of time it takes to decay, and compiled them into a sequential recording of which this is an extract. The recording was made using multiple microphones positioned around each space.
  4. El agua se detiene, by Enrique Maraver (Ciudad de México, México) – En el gris y muy temprano atardecer…… me percato de un sutil contacto, un contacto casi invisible, que sacude mi mente y llama a mi oído. El tiempo…..? El tiempo no importa, la oscuridad mucho menos….. lo único que me importa es visualizar este movimiento……. este sonido. El entorno cauto y pendiente, pendiente de cada movimiento, de cada desplazamiento y a su vez, es el único testigo.
  5. Raigardo slėnis, by Yiorgis Sakellariou (Lithuania) – Recordings took place on June 13 at Raigardo slėnis (Raigardas valley) in Lithuania. The location is close to the city of Druskininkai and it expands to the borders between Lithuania and Belarus. Special thanks to Egidija Medekšaitė.
  6. MNBA Un Paseo 04 VII 2014, by Claudio M. Barros (Buenos Aires, Argentina) – Soundwalk around the National Fine Arts Museum of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  7. Creaking Plum Tree (Extract), by Gregory Ovenden (UK) – Recorded with two DPA4060s with Sound Devices 744T.  Microphones were placed into a split in the trunk of a plum tree to record the sounds of the tree creaking in the wind.  No post processing has been made to the recording.
  8. Pond Symphony Orchestra, by Lewis Gilbert (UK) – The piece contains recordings captured from a large pond in the remote area of Connemara, County Galway, Ireland. Two recordings have been used, one of the atlantic wind blowing through tall pond-reeds and one taken from underwater using a pair of hydrophones to capture the pond life beneath the surface. All recordings are in 24bit/48kHz stereo, recorded into a Sound Devices 552 using an NT4 and JrF hydrophones.

  9. Soft Set, by Lisa Lerkenfeldt (Australia) – The ocean by evening.
  10. Triptyque miniature d’une botanique pour vents, eaux et une nuit, by Éliane Blaise (France) – My piece is composed and made with different parts and excerpt from my own fields recordings. These parts was recorded in different places located in the Northfolk in England (in the last December, 2013) and Paris in France (in the last summer, 2013) during some nights and days for each of them. In the Northfolk area I recorded the strong wind and a kind specie of bird in the branchages of shrubs behind the small sand hill as dunes at Horsey beach. I recorded also in Floxley Wood during the night to try catch the quiet atmosphere. In Paris I recorded in different urban places during some rainy days when the daytime is near of the sunset! In all places we could hear only the nature, but we heard too human voices, and the sound of urban areas, far and near. This is a difficult way to find a very quiet place, but by hearing after cutting that’s could be make sens, as mood, as feeling focused on something different.
  11. Below the surface, by Ludovic Medery (Belgium) – It’s four synchronized recordings. The recordings has been performed with a hydrophone and with traditional microphones. The recordings were made at “les étangs de la Julienne” and along the
    “Meuse” river in Belgium.
  12. Last ashes of winter, by Jeff Gburek (Poznan, Poland) – Recorded July 1st when I realized the coal-stove hadn’t been cleaned out since the warm weather began. So for World Listening  Day 2014, I created a field recording ritual cleansing of the hearth from the residues of the past year, performed very slowly. It is a raw monophonic recording with a studio condenser microphone and only the tails are edited.
  13. Speak, by mise_en_scene (Israel) – Found recordings.
  14. Pontblau, by Rubén García (Valencia, Spain) – The recording is a section of  a long stereo contact mic recording of the low frequency resonance of the structure of a metallic bridge with wind, pedestrians and cars passing. Only basic editing and equalization to enhance the low freq.
  15. Escalator, by David Roger (UK) – Escalator ride through the Parc de Montjuïc, approaching the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona.
  16. Industrial Home Town, by Timothy McHugh (Cheshire, UK) – Recorded with Sound devices 702T – Rode NT4.
  17. Katoomba 13.27, by Pascal Battus (Australia) – This composition is based on recordings I made in july 2011 near Katoomba (Blue Mountains) New South Wales, Australia. I wanted to record the fauna and the acoustic spaces in the rain forest, so I went down the cliff (150/200meters) and began recording. Later on, the wind I could hear in the high foliage of the eucalyptuses became stronger and stronger as I was climbing back up, but fortunately the low stratum of the forest and the cliff itself provided shelters for my microphone (brand new but without wind protection). The storm in Katoomba blew down electric cables and trees… In hindsight, my interest shifted from foreground (birds, human activity…) to background: the sonic activity of the wind on the cliff and this mass of trees. The piece is formed with 9 sequences (from 30” to 2,30’),but remained a rather raw material. 
  18. Fading in the Morning Mist, by Miles Bowe (UK) – This composition came about after multiple visits to a local woodland to record the Dawn Chorus. What I found particularly poignant about these trips, where I might begin recording at roughly 4 am, is the transition you can hear from night into day. Namely in the form of nocturnal animals making their final vocalisations. In this instance a Fox came very close to where I was positioned and barked for several minutes, it was a chilling experience. The piece consists of two separate field recordings edited in Adobe Audition. Let me know if the mixdown is ok if you decide you’d like to use the recording, I was unsure how much amplification to add. The piece sounds best when listened to on headphones or a good speaker set up, however I added a little more amplification to cater for the possibility of it being played back on laptop speakers etc. The recording equipment used was a Fostex FR-2LE and an Audio-Technica BP4025.

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