Tag: field recordings

  • Observation n.68

    Observation n.68

    end, red dress

    the brink

    ○ Mar 2025 | Label: Independent

    ■ Genres: Experimental / Field Recordings / Drone
    ■ Rating: 7.7/10
    ■ Favorite track: “it’s the thinnest and brittlest of veils”

    ► This infuses the stillness of drone music with a striking sense of urgency. Beneath the steady, immersive hum lies a pulse of tension — like an inaudible clock ticking. The radio fragments never resolve into clarity, instead hovering like lost messages from a distant crisis. Subtle oscillations and tonal shifts widen the atmosphere, giving the impression of scanning an unknown horizon for signals of meaning or safety.

  • Voices #11

    Voices #11
    ◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
    here we got:

    Thomas / Kaufmann-Buhler

    answering some questions. We have already observed their field recordings / experimental / post-rock work here.
    ◦ [Toby and Wayne speaking alternately]

    [1. IDEA]

    ■ The A. O.: Can you tell us how the track “I remained a stranger to the birds“ came to light?

    ► Toby: This track came about following work we did on “Kolmar Park”; Wayne and i decided to continue working together, and expand this project to EP length (at the suggestion of Past Inside the Present label head Zach Frizzell). I really loved Wayne’s approach with his guitar playing, so we decided i should return to my field recording sources and from this came a set that i felt really worked together and flowed well from the first track. Wayne then worked his magic and made it into a full piece.

    [2. CREATION]

    (more…)

  • Voices #6

    Voices #6
    ◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
    here we got:

    Fletina

    answering some questions. We have already observed his field recordings / experimental / abstract work here.

    [1. IDEA]

    ■ The A. O.: Can you tell us how “Becquerel” came to light?

    ► Fletina: I was reading about the French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel and his discovery of ‘The Photovoltaic Effect’ while I was experimenting with some recent field recordings of mine, and without me being particularly conscious of it – I was soundtracking the story of Becquerel’s early struggles and his eventual scientific breakthrough in my own head, and trying to sculpt sounds to match my vision, so the whole thing happened in a symbiotic kind of way. I wanted to make it a longform album-length piece to reflect the time and patience it must have took for Becquerel to make his discovery, while also keeping everything pretty vague and open to interpretation…
    Through abstract sonic experimentation with room tones and various field recordings I found that I had created a vaguely dark and confined atmosphere that suited the theme of the release. The sound artist Anne-F Jacques described it as ”simultaneously full of sound but with a kind of hollow open space in the middle”. Given how abstract and ambiguous the piece (and my work in general) is – it’s pretty difficult to talk about, but the whole thing makes sense in my own head…

    [2. CREATION]

    (more…)

  • Voices #5

    Voices #5
    ◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
    here we got:

    Sunrise 2×4

    answering some questions. We have already observed his field recordings / drone / dark ambient / ambient work here.

    [1. IDEA]

    ■ The A. O.: The track from “The Drowning of Guanacaste” that we prefer is “The Blood Spilt From the Lizard Will Return To Wash Over Us All”. Can you tell us how it came to light?

    ► Sunrise 2×4: Sure, this track was mostly made up of aggravated acoustic guitar samples, recorded onto a microcassette and fed through various effect pedals. The guitar for this specific track was a fuller recording I had earlier from Jarret Luttrull who did the original sample of my older tapeloop song “music for your dying plants ii”
    The electrical hums are inspired by the constant rain and lightning storms that we worked under, and every day they seemed to show up out of nowhere and drown out everything around us. I remember walking a mile on the beach back to my room from the bar, which would have been blissfully picturesque but in the distance I could see a lightning storm move closer and closer to the direction I was heading. So even at moments of complete peace, being alone on the beach there was always a looming threat of electrical storms. At one point a lightning strike took out all the cameras and electronics in one of the rooms we had set up and fried tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
    The title of the track came from an unfortunate event with the passing of one of the older lizards that lived on the property. He had always sunbathed in the same spot near the restaraunt we all ate at, and he passed during our residency there. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t collectively our fault for being there.

    [2. CREATION]

    (more…)

  • Observation n.34

    Observation n.34

    Thomas / Kaufmann-Buhler

    I remained a stranger to the birds

    ○ March 2025 | Label: Somnimage

    ■ Genres: Field Recordings, Experimental, Post-rock
    ■ Rating: 7.0/10
    ■ Favorite track: “I remained a stranger to the birds“

    ► We live in this hypertrophic world. Is there still room for the beauty of little things? This is an empty question, typical of this late-capitalist era where you have to thank for your crumbs. But these 20 minutes are a meaningful exception. Here really “less is more”, here peace simply exists.

  • Observation n.19

    Observation n.19

    Sunrise 2×4

    The Drowning Of Guanacaste

    ○ December 2024 | Independent

    ■ Genres: Field Recordings, Drone, Dark Ambient, Ambient
    ■ Rating: 7.9/10
    ■ Favorite track: “The Blood Spilt From the Lizard Will Return to Wash Over us All“

    ►Although the music advances with the patience a windless wave, the main feeling is restlessness. The circular anxiety is exacerbated by guitar interventions, inserted with ingenious incoherence in the sound picture. The choice of instrumental timbres is clever and seductive.

  • Observation n.13

    observation n.13

    Fletina

    Becquerel

    ○ September 2024 | Independent

    ■ Genres: Field Recordings, Experimental, Abstract
    ■ Rating: 6.5/10
    ■ Favorite track: “Becquerel“

    This is not music: it’s a mirror. You try to look for something and you get nothing but yourself. So, since we do not know you listener, here is our review:
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