Aug. 5, 2023
I’ve had work appear on two digital compilations recently, both available to stream or download from BandCamp.
Drosera is released on the sirr-ecords label out of Lisbon. It includes works made with sounds of plants by Marco Scarassatti (Brazil) and Slavek kwi (Czech Republic/Ireland), along with my own High Desert Florascape, which was assembled from older recordings of cacti and other desert plants I’d made when I lived in New Mexico.
Framework Radio is based in Estonia. In addition to their ongoing radio programs highlighting field recording, they’ve been releasing a series of seasonal compilations. Issue #14 (Summer 2023) features works by Yen-Ting Hsu (Taiwan/USA), Pablo Diserens (Berlin), nula.cc aka Lloyd Dunn (Czech Republic), and myself. All proceeds from download sales go to keeping Framework Radio on the air.
chaud/froid (hot/cold) was made in 2015, from recordings I collected that summer during an artist residency in Oulchy-Le-Chatêau, a small rural village in northern France. My Albuquerque friends Loren Kahn and Isabelle Kessler invited me to come spend a couple of weeks in a big old country house that had been owned by Isabelle’s family for many years. It was a mysterious place, filled with history and probably ghosts. It reminded me of the houses in some of Jacques Rivette’s films, like Celine & Julie Go Boating or Love on the Ground – films in which magical old houses are among the main characters.
It was an idyllic couple of weeks, during which I helped out with some yard work for an hour or so each day, saw some of the local sites, and was otherwise free to do whatever came to mind. When I got home I assembled this piece. I think Loren and Isabelle were a little surprised at how spooky it turned out to be, but that was the influence of the house.
All of the sounds used were recorded in or around the house or in the surrounding area, with the exception of some nuns singing in an abbey and kids playing in a schoolyard, which were both recorded in other nearby towns. The title comes from the fact that two of the primary sound sources (drones) were the furnace and the refrigerator.
