Category Archives: commentary / review

note, commentary or review of something

audio cultures, parallel worlds

As I travel around doing projects and giving workshops I start to notice something when I explain what I do and how it relates to the culture of sound and listening. The inevitable question that always comes up is, how is this information useful? Working as a “sound artist” appears to many people (and actually [...]
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spaces of abandon

Here is a selected set of photos from a series taken in 2007. Abandoned spaces like this are from old soviet collective farms, however they  are rapidly disappearing. Structures like this decayed so rapidly because of the poor methods of construction. It was common for people to steal any valuable materials for their own use [...]
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deep winter

2010 New Years greetings to everyone. I’m posting some photos taken during the recent days of crystal clear but cold weather (-15C to -26C, 5F to -15F). Its a time when everything seems to come to a frozen standstill, everything except the last remaining moisture in the air which condenses as crystallized ice on all [...]
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kqed spark – loren chasse

short but good TV film about Loren’s work
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found fences, spring drifts

Gathering inspiration from the metal fence highlighted in the previous post, I spent a few hours wandering Tampere to search for other metal fences and railings with similar resonant qualities. There were many, each with their own characteristics. The two I highlight here stood out. But there was also a prectical reason for not recording [...]
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sound objects in the landscape

During a recent revenant sound workshop in Tampere, Finland we took some time out to introduce a few basic recording techniques used in the field (it is good to remind ourselves that “field recording” is more a technique than a genre). This was to show what kind of things we do in practice to the [...]
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recorder test, part II

For now I decided to focus on the Sony PCM-D50 and what kind of recorder you get “out of the box”. I don’t have a new Edirol HR-09 to test and I wouldn’t recommend getting the old model. The Sony unit feels sturdy and seems well made, even more so than my old Sony minidisc [...]
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mic / recorder comparison part 1

When dealing with recorded sound, technology plays an essential role in nearly every step of the process. While I focus a great deal of attention on acoustic sound, the capturing, editing, processing, compressing and sharing of those sounds, all relies on and is affected by, technology. This is a very general intro and overview to [...]
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a conspiration of birds

7:30 in the morning woken by the sound of skwaking above central of Dresden. It was somehow more noticeable than any time  before. Every day at dusk thousands of crows and jackdaws gather outside this building converging on the rooftops and trees to roost for the night. This morning I got up and made my [...]
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animate structures #2

It’s winter and the temperatures are not friendly for recording outdoors. In Dresden, where I’m in residence for several weeks at 7.stock, it’s been around -5 – 0 C during the day (not including the wind). I mention the wind because I’ve been working on the 7th floor of a building. While the view is [...]
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open closure

Extended greetings and creativity to all in the coming year. I passed the turning tide with a great group of old and new friends, in and out of doors. This recording was made on the first of a three day NoYears event held at MoKS. While drifting into the empty oil tanks in Mooste, Maksims [...]
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winter crystallization

These are some images I captured yesterday after a fairly cold evening (-10c) left ice crytal formations around our yard. Reading up on the process of crystallization gave some insight into these amazing forms. The “growth” of crystals is built on a complex layering of structures embedded within structures implying fractal-like behaviors that begin at [...]
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