So, we did it! The variety of places, submissions and ears augmented this year not only in terms of numbers, but also in the diversity of the material itself. It has been an amazing journey to listen to all of these great sounds and moments. This year, I wanted to give a new approach in the way the recordings are organized, compiled and published, so this time I didn’t want to think about conceptual categories or context-driven organization, but to group materials that in my opinion, can show together a particular aspect or feeling of sound. The decisions where more aesthetically and some times acousmatically made, so you will find all kind of environments combined together, but united because of a single idea or characteristic behind aspects of sound such as texture, space, mass, atmosphere, time or complexity.
I was also thinking to alter/master the volume of some pieces, but I ultimately decided to leave them as they were sent, mainly because I felt that this contrast in terms of loudness and dynamics between the pieces also gives an interesting perspective when listening to a whole album from the compilation. Of course some pieces could be placed in several albums, but they were put in a particular release also because of the way they interact to the rest of the stuff on each group. The idea is to listen to each whole album and feel what the combination of sounds, places, moments, decisions, people, etc gives to the ears.
This year I also wanted to do more diffusion of each work and the releases included, and each of the albums comes a larger amount of tracks, if compared with the latest year. Also, there were a lot of recordings to listen and upload, so in a way of extending our listening experience and giving more time and space for the materials, I’ve decided to release the albums in different days, celebrating the world listening day from today until sunday. Each day, two new releases, for a total of six different albums.
Last but not least, sorry if your recording was not included in the releases, but I had to leave out some of them, mainly because was not field recording or has other materials such as synths, studio voiceover or heavy processing. That pieces are also great and worth the listen, but here at Sonic Terrain, the idea is to explore what’s sounding in the environment.
Thanks again to all the contributors, I really hope you enjoy the journey and HAPPY LISTENING DAY.
