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Letter from Simon Whetham
Recently I received a letter from Simon Whetham about some articles and topics featured here in The Field Reporter as well as in our Facebook page. Simon has been heavily involved with publications, concerts installations and workshops regarding the action of listening and recording sounds over the past 8 years so I thought it could be interesting to make this message public and see how it adds to the emergence of a phonographic and concrete discourse that The Field Reporter has been trying to encourage.
I note that The Field Reporter only claims responsibility for the material written by its editorial team but I feel that is helpful and valid to feature external opinions imprinted in our journal through interviews and guest writers.
In regard of the messages exchange that Simon refers to I would like to welcome our readers to join us in Facebook and Twitter and use those communities to give your opinion and build up a discussion towards the topic of listening, recording and using their experience and archive to make art and music.
-David Velez
‘A response to recent reviews/comments…
I am slightly guilty in not having been subscribed to ‘The Field Reporter’ until 3 days ago. Of course I dip in now and then to read the reviews and comments (and not just about my own work – please don’t assume that!), but as we all probably are, I am extremely busy with my own work and life in general.
I took more of an interest recently with Edu Comelles ‘best of 2012’ comments. He raised some interesting points, which were then discussed at some depth on Facebook, and then it seems not at all on this site. As I pointed out in the discussion, there are a number of subscribers to TFR who are not on Facebook, so they completely missed out on the exchanges!
Firstly I’m not so sure that 90% of the albums that featured field recordings – in the all-encompassing approach this refers to – feature the nature sounds that Edu refers to. Even looking back through the releases of Impulsive Habitat, for example, you can see this is not the case. But even if this is the case, surely the reason for this would be to escape the exact sounds that Edu would like to hear in releases – Supermarkets? Shopping centres? Busy streets maybe? The exact same thing most of us have to deal with in everyday life? Yeah, give me some of those albums, please!!
Along these lines, there is currently a discussion in the Yahoo Phonography Group which is asking questions about location recordings being listened to in the same location. This is an interesting approach, although again nothing new.
However, surely the intention of a recordist who publishes work recorded in Antarctica or Amazonas is to present sounds that most of us will never hear in any other way. This is not to say any sound of any remote location is interesting – far from it – but to dismiss these works as cliched and dull is a little ridiculous.
The trend I would question more is the ‘ambient drone with random field recordings’ approach, which I must admit I have been guilty of – although in my defence, the drones are captured or created with site-specific recordings, they are not just arbitrarily combined. This ‘genre’ is completely over-saturated in my opinion, yet no-one seems to question this…
Moving on to two recent reviews, we have an album (actually a double) from Lawrence English that features recordings of non-human environments, which receives a glowing review and asks a question regarding the context of the sounds presented. This is quickly followed by Peter Cusack’s highly personal collection of field recordings, which is negatively criticised for many things – one being that it is nothing new.*
I am going to be completely honest here and say that although I understand what Peter is presenting, this is not an album that interests me in any way, but for me his work has more substance than Lawrence’s. He has compiled an album that he feels needs to be heard, the recordings having a personal resonance for him – something we must all feel, otherwise why work with field recordings? Whether this resonance can then be felt by another listener is something that we all have to consider also.
* One needs to remember that when they began field recording, every single sound became interesting in some way. With time and experience, and hearing work by others going back 20 years or more, (hopefully) you come to realise what will be interesting and intriguing for a listener, not just yourself. Personally I love the look on people’s faces when they hear a contact mic in use for the first time – it reminds me why I do this!’
-Simon Whetham
January 2013, Medellín, Colombia
Comments (7)
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Dear Simon, nice to see this, and I hope my post here will slowly enable us, and anyone else, please, to try and develop this matter. I apologise in advance if I veer toward the unnecessary, or the subliminal, and the well trod. I’ll also try to keep this short.
I was pointed to Edu’s comments by a friend and I have to say I appreciated them very much, though, for now, it’s not my intention to comment on that, as, if he indeed wants to, I feel any initial response should come from him. Though I would like to place a well known quote from Robert Rauschenberg, in here, as I often feel is quite appropriate to such matters, at least in terms of context:
“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable,”
Just to quickly comment on what you said about the Cusack review:
–––– This is quickly followed by Peter Cusack’s highly personal collection of field recordings, which is negatively criticised for many things – one being that it is nothing new.––––
Being as I wrote the thing, I realise that i will have a particularly narrow way of viewing it, but I can’t help but think you misunderstood my intentions, as I feel the review revolves around my realisation that the negativity was inherent in myself prior to listening to the recordings and reading through the words, and actually how the combination of the two managed to reverse my disposition and result in a very inspiring experience.
And to the nothing new comment; that was actually in relation to the more factual element of the book itself, and not the recordings, in which Cusack lays out a necessary and brief history of the social and ecological environment in relation to, amongst other things, the analogous modern nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which I think helps one realise that these recordings are indeed presented in a very specific frame, which of course can be lifted if one should desire, but then any ramifications, I believe, are out of Cusack’s hands.
As I said, I’ll keep this brief, in the hope that some people will be compelled to reply.
Thanks again
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hi patrick.
i’m not sure how i ended up defending peter’s album – i have many problems with the whole idea of the project.. don’t even get me started on the title!reading back it was more a reaction to all 3 reviews/posts rather than singling yours out. especially when comparing your and jd’s reviews, both concerning albums of ‘unprocessed’ field recordings.
as i said, i probably won’t hear either of them – maybe lawrence’s is amazing and peter’s not – but there is a strange negative shift towards the term ‘field recording’, and the use of ‘unprocessed’ environmental recordings (i have used ‘quotation marks’ as i don’t agree with the term, but it explains much more clearly the type of recording i mean), which i also wrote about before. i guess the strangest thing is it has become a genre, rather than an approach to working or a method.
i also wanted to write something at least, as no-one else had on this blog.
best regards to you patrick, and good to discuss these things with you
simon -
Thanks Simon and Patrick! I appreciate your comments!
Maybe there is a need to say that anything said by my on that “famous” post isn’t at all dogma. As stated on the text I’m trying to make some self-critisiscim. If you check out my discography you’ll find plenty of the things I seem to dislike on the post.
Said so I have to addmit that the tone, humour and roughness of my text it’s just a way to shake things a bit. Usually we are living in the wonderful dream, from time to time a little bit of Punk allows us to meditate on what’s going on, get hands dirty and move along. I’m totally sure that my thoughts aren’t a minority, it just happen that I was the one that decided to step forward and get a few punches, which I’m happy for it. Otherwise, i get bored.
By the way, Patrick, can you develope further your statement about Rauschenberg?
Thanks to all! hope more people start to talk an discuss this issues,
And also here I leave some supermarkets, shopping centers and busy streets,…
http://educomelles.bandcamp.com/track/lost-in-the-supermarket
http://educomelles.bandcamp.com/track/la-ciudad-electroac-stica-walked-mix
http://educomelles.bandcamp.com/track/deriva-dominical🙂
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Hi, Though I welcome this debate as its always heartening to hear critical thoughts on our artistic output, especially when applied to specific examples. I question (in an open friendly manner) the place this debate has happened here. As I struggle to monitor and keep on top of information, of going back and checking websites for updates.
I follow the field reporter via RSS feeds, this feed doesn’t show the comments it just shows the post. So these debates can pass me by and I feel they could prove invaluable. As our debates can be too vague as we discuss the meaning of words such as soundscape. The discussions here are refreshing to me as they are applied to specific examples and even if we don’t get to hear these pieces there is an opportunity to engage our ears and apply this ti what we read.
My question too the field reporter and its readers is regarding how many different places do we need to go to to keep up-to-date and be part of the on going debate in phonography / field recording. I’ve pretty much stopped visiting Facebook as of late and I find tweets can easily be missed when you don’t constantly monitor its stream. Personally I find the phonography email discussion group to be an invaluable and supportive place. I feel this discussion could have been better served to have been part of this email group and It could easily link back to the reviews posted on field reporter.
I just want posed a question of how many sites must we constantly monitor?
It’s probably just me and my love things being delivered to me (email; podcasts; RSS feeds), rather than having to go to website and see if it’s changed.
Personally It was great to see this debate started and maybe here might turn into the best place. As Simon said no one had commented and perhaps he has started a great new edition/discussion to this site.
I’d like to end by thanking all the reviewers to field recorder for the time and effort they put into their reviews. Its proving to be a valuable resource in the ever expanding world of listening, artistic creation and publication.
best wishes
joe -
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March 24, 2013 -
What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious
know-how regarding unexpected emotions.
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January 27, 2013