Tag: sound/Archives

Voice Power

Excellent essay on “The Power of Voice” by Siobhan McHugh. She shares a devastating tape-recording of Jan Graham, an Australian woman who reported the Vietnam War:

She wept as she told of finding the mutilated body of her lover, a Green Beret on surveillance with the US army. I offered to stop the tape, but she wanted to be purged of all the memories, and the worst was yet to come. Have a listen to the three minutes of tape here. It’s barely been edited, apart from where I shortened some of the pauses, as her grief was just unbearable:”

“Jan Graham” (3:18 mp3):

Then she compares that spoken version to the written text of it that appeared in the book Minefields and Miniskirts:

But when I wrote up the interview for a book, the flatness of the words on the page haunted me…

Scan of book page

…Much more to read and think about in this Transom > Sidebar proclaiming “The Power of Voice.”

Bingo Ambi

Bingo Blues record cover
Yet another WFMU find; blogger Tony Coulter describes this record as:

A single offering up audio-verite recordings made in a Scottish bingo parlor. Despite being completely unmanipulated, the A-side, which you’ll find below, serves quite well as sound art, no?

From the liner notes:

Day by day, Angela McColloch, the Glaswedian Bingo hostess, reads her colours and numbers to the ambient melodies of the big buck$ slot machines… for hours at a time.

“Bingo Blues” Aleksandra Mir (3:44 mp3):

Energy Field

CD coverA new sound symphony by Jana Winderen artist/recordist is out on Touch Music. She calls her album Energy Field. Here’s a sample (5:20):

Armed with four 8011 DPA hydrophones, DPA 4060 omni mics, a Telinga parabolic reflector mic and and a Sound Devices 744T digital hard disk recorder, Jana Winderen studies and records wild places which have a particular importance in our understanding of the complexity and fragility of marine ecosystems.

The recordings were made on field trips to the Barents Sea (north of Norway and Russia), Greenland and Norway, deep in crevasses of glaciers, in fjords and in the open ocean. These elements are then edited and layered into a powerful descriptive soundscape. The open spaces of Greenland, northern winds, ravens and dogs in an icy landscape provide the setting for these haunting but dynamic pieces. Sounds of crustaceans, fish such as cod, haddock, herring and pollock recorded as they are hunting, calling for a mate or orientating themselves in their environment, are all included in the mix.

From her artist statement:

I have been occupied with finding sounds from unseen sources of sound, like blind field recordings. Over the last three years I have collected recordings made by hydrophones, from rivers, shores and the ocean, and more recently also from glaciers in Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In the depths of the oceans there are invisible but audible soundscapes, about which we are largely ignorant, even if the oceans cover 70% of our planet.

Jana Winderen: site | Touch | Noisiest Guys

Third Coast Reborn

The Third Coast International Audio Festival celebrates their transition to an independent org with a new website, with a really nice audio library. More good news: they’re continuing their Re:sound series and competition.

Their new audio player (customized jPlayer) is quite the cat’s PJs:

Soundscapes of Faith

CandleThe radio program Interfaith Voices has a new series of sacred sonic features called The Soundscapes of Faith. There’s a shofar, shape singers, Sikh hymns, and several more.

Check this Islamic prayer, with elaborations by Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University (2:34):

One of the most beautiful sounds of Islam is the call to prayer, or adhan. It rings out in many Muslin countries 5 times a day, asking believers to pause their day and remember God.

Kagu Calls

Kagu bird displayEarthEar is back as a CD label and a new blog, both devoted to natural soundscapes and field recordings. The blog-post “Acoustic Monitoring in New Caledonia” has some startling sounds, w/ pix and map, of the Kagu bird:

Sophie Rouys is a conservation biologist and heads up the Kagu Recovery Plan for New Caledonia; she recorded some really close up calls one morning in the park at Riviere Bleue. They call, usually in groups, for anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour at dawn. They’re pretty silent the rest of the time, except for clucking sounds when male and female switch off at the nest and the occasional display.

Ximm Here Now

Right Here, Right Now is an evening with sound-artist Aaron Ximm (aka, quiet american), Oct 29 at the Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA):

2009 AIR Aaron Ximm creates intimate, site-specific sound installations that translate fleeting moments captured by field recordings into present experiences.

He’ll also present 24 channels of sound Oct 18 at Headlands Fall Open House.

site-specific sound installation

As paredes têm ouvidos (“The walls are listening”) Aaron Ximm’s 2007 site-specific sound installation, Lisbon, Portugal

“As Parades Tem Ouvidos – Nature (Collage C)” recordings made within the walls of Nodar, on the theme of nature sounds (6:17 mp3):