World Listening Day 2013: New York City

For World Listening Day 2013, I thought I'd post something a little different from my usual environmental recordings. This piece was recorded from the window of the ACE Hotel, 20W 29th Street, New York City, just before 1am Sunday 24 February 2013. One first pass, it may seem like a typical city soundscape. Traffic. Distant voices. Hum. However, to my ears it was distinctly different to what I was familiar with. I live in a busy city, Sydney, in Australia. I'm used to these sounds. But as I sat there listening to these sounds, the subtle differences in the sounds, the sources of which were all too familiar, from what my ears were accustomed to sounded somehow new. Unique. I guess this taps into the ideas behind World Listening Day, it isn't just the sounds, its what you hear.



You can listen at Soundcloud here.

Blast Furnace Park, Lithgow

Blast Furnace Park is located in Lithgow, NSW (about 2h drive from Sydney). The old blast furnace was constrcuted in the late 1880s and marked the beginning of the iron and steel industry in Australia. The furnace operated until 1928. The remains of the furnace foundations and associated structures remain and parklands, including a small wetland, have been preserved. You can read more about the history of the iron and steel industry in Lithgow here.

This recording was made in late 2012. 




 

Wood, Winter, Hollow

The cold had a certain warmth to it. Worlds, life, among the layers of ice. Complex sounds, alive, found in the darkest rocks, wet with winter’s water. These hollows, rough with age, nature’s hideouts, were the source of inspiration and sounds for the first full-length collaborative effort from Seaworthy (Cameron Webb) and Taylor Deupree.

Webb was plucked from a bushfire and flood-ridden east coast of an Australian summer and deposited via a 20h flight into a New York covered in snow. From wetlands abuzz with wildlife in the Australia to winter’s wooded trails through Pound Ridge, the sonic environments couldn’t have been more different.

Working together in person has been an important point in Deupree’s collaboratinos lately. Much preferring the human interaction and local landscapes over the soulless exchange of sound files over the internet. With this point taken care of the pair struck out in a New York February to a 4,000 acre nature preserve near Deupree’s studio called Ward Pound Ridge, a park rich in history that supports a diverse range of plant and animal life. While the cold of winter kept most of the animals quiet the landscape nonetheless teemed with sounds. The local environment was hit badly by Hurricane Sandy a few months prior and the remnants of broken trees and debris littered much of the woodland area. Deupree and Webb spent three days on the trails recording sounds and images which created direction and purpose for their album which was composed in the evenings in the 12k studio.

The resulting Wood, Winter, Hollow traces a rustic path of the days in the woods with an equally natural soundset fronted by Webb on a nylon string guitar. Bells, sticks, melodica and the occasional analog synthesizer form the sonic backdrop echoing the quiet, but lively sounds of the winter forest. Endemic field recordings, including hydrophones placed in near-frozen streams, became an integral part of the work creating a subtle narrative that places the album in its specific place in time.

The subtle crackle of a slow flowing creek working its way through a cover of ice and frozen leaves. The faint whistle of the pale leaves of the beech tree that defy mother nature by clinging to their tree’s spindling branches against the push of winter winds. The cacophony of whispered raindrops running off infrastructure and hundred year old stone structures. These are the sounds that inspire and infuse Wood, Winter, Hollow. The rawness of winter in a world clinging to fragments of warmth.

For sound samples and ordering details, please visit the 12k website. CD/Download available from June 11 2013.

Has it been almost a year?

Hard to believe it has been a year since the last post here on Environmental Sounds! Things are changing though so you can look forward to some new sounds and photos returning shortly.

World Listening Day 2012: East Coast Low

To celebrate World Listening Day 2012, I'm sharing this piece compiled from recordings made in early June when Sydney was soaked by an immense low pressure system that battered the coast with wind, rain and massive surf.

Late night at Flynn's Beach, Port Macquarie

On a recent trip to Port Macquarie on the mid-north coast of NSW, I took the opportunity to record the sounds of late night surf at Flynn's Beach.

On this piece, I've combined three different recordings, each taken from a slightly different position on the beach. One well behind the beach, one on a set of stairs leading down to the beach and one on teh sand just beyond the wash zone. I almost lost the recorder on one occasion when a freak wave washed much further up the beach than expected.

Port Macquarie is an interesting stretch of coastline with some distinctive beach structures and surrounding vegetation. Despite being heavily developed, there are some areas of native vegetation that has been protected. In particular, one of the last stands of subtropical rainforest on teh NSW coast. If you're in the area, drop by the Sea Acres Rainforest Cafe.

Myalup Dunes after sunset

Myalup Dunes After Sunset  

The recording below was made in the dunes near my house just after sunset. Sitting in the dunes is an interesting listening experience as the sound of the ocean reverberates around the surfaces of the steep sand faces and down into the valleys between them. Depending on the time of day, the sea breeze can also produce an interesting resonance. There was no wind when this recording was taken so it just the crickets and waves off in the distance.

new Seaworthy album: Bellows and Breath

The Preservation label presents Bellows and Breath, the fourth album from Sydney’s Seaworthy.

Seaworthy is the musical guise of Cameron Webb, who for the best part of a decade has developed singular soundscapes scored with guitar-driven ambience, field recording and digital processing. In recent years, Webb has recorded to acclaim for the esteemed 12K label, releasing the 1897 album in 2009 followed by a collaboration with Matt Rosner, Two Lakes.

His compositions reflect his deep connection to environment and nature; each piece often feels like a journey through beautiful, untethered terrain. For Bellows and Breath, Webb has explored a different terrain of his own, paring back his trademark guitar to build a work based largely around harmonium, melodica and found sounds. By way of its title, Bellows and Breath is a new side to Webb’s sonic meditations on movement, air and its interaction with the environment.

The pure rhythmic hiss and crackle of the harmonium’s bellows proved the inspiration for the way Webb played the harmonium itself, becoming an unforced undertow to a set of bowing chords that invoke an open spirit in their composition and measure. Spare and fluid acoustic guitar intermittently reflects off these surfaces, also layered by combinations of melodica, incidental rushes of wind through grass and distant sounds of birds, insects and more. This may be Webb once again in sentiment with nature, however Bellows and Breath represents a bold new step in his special and personal trajectory.

Released on CD in April 2012. Limited to 300 copies.

Order now!

Kooragang Island Frogs

This recording was made at night alongside a freshwater pond on Kooragang Island near Newcastle, NSW. Kooragang Island is a unique location because it was once an extensive estuarine wetland dominated by mangroves and saltmarsh. However, much of the land was reclaimed for agriculture and a network of roads and pathways were constructed across the site. As a result, a series of swales were created that, despite being amongst estuarine environments, retain mostly freshwater habitats. These habitats are highly dependent on seasonal rainfall but they provide locally important breeding habitats for threatened species such as teh Green and Golden Bell Frog. In this recording, you can hear two dominant species, Litoria peronii and Litoria fallax. These two "tree frog" species are relatively common in the local area.

Abandoned Drains

Over the past decade, Hexham Swamp on the NSW coast new Newcastle has been the subject of one of the largest wetland rehabilitation projects in the southern hemisphere. Part of the project has been the reintroduction of tidal flows to the wetland and as part of that process, an old pipelines that once acted as drains have been decomissioned. The old pipes had been discarded onsite and these recordings were made on an extremely windy day from a shaltered space inside the pipes.

Abandoned Drains by seaworthy

Two Lakes & 12k December Sale

Seaworthy and Matt Rosner's 2010 collaboration "Two Lakes" met with great critical aclaim on its release and we're happy to let you all known that during the month of December, you can pick it up for a bargain price during 12k's annual December sale. Alongside our CD, you can also grab a few other great releases from 12k includingreleases from Ken Kirschner, Fourcolor, Stephan Mathieu (highly recommended!), Moss and Murralin Lane. Full details of the sale , as well as sound samples, are available on the 12k website.

Blue Mountains Botanic Garden

Approximately 90min drive from Sydney's CBD, The Blue Mountain Botanic Gardens are located at Mt Tomah. This beautiful region of the Blue Mountains is the perfect location for the Botanic Gardens. Just one part of the gardens is known as "The Jungle". For some history on this area of the gardens:

"The Jungle was originally purchased in 1929 by a group of Sydney businessmen to save the magnificent sassafras and coachwood trees from the timber mill while providing Sydney with a national park to its west. It was opened by the then Governor Admiral Sir Dudley DeChair on 23 March 1929 and the original walk was dedicated to the memory of Sir James Fairfax KBE. However, the Jungle never achieved its destiny as a national park as the Great Depression, coupled with pressure for building funds for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, led in 1934 to the land being resumed by the previous owners, the Charley family.
In 2008, 33 hectares of the original Jungle was purchased by the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, with the financial support of John and Elizabeth Fairfax and the NSW Government's Environmental Trust. Now part of the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah, the Jungle is again in public hands giving Sydneysiders an opportunity to experience and understand Blue Mountains' rainforest."

These recordings were made late in the afternoon on 21 November. While within the rainforest habitats you seem completely isolated, the invasive sound of traffic continues to invade these recordings. However, the diversity of bird calls here more than makes up for it. It would be nice to visit first thing in the morning to make some more recordings.

For more information on the Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens visit their website.

Blue Mountains Botanic Garden by seaworthy

Singing Floodlights

This recording was made with contact mics on floodlight towers at Campbell Park, Russell Lea, NSW, Australia. The towers are relatively narrow and at over 30m high with their large banks of floodlights tend to sway a little once the wind picks up. These recordings were made during a period of particularly strong winds, a common occurance in Sydney during September/October each year. The sounds in these recordings are primarily made from the movement of internal wires/cables as the huge structures sway in the wind. During these recordings, the movement in the lights above was quite dramatic.

Singing Floodlights by seaworthy

Sugarloaf Rock

Sugarloaf Rock is situated in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park near Margaret River in Western Australia. Since I was a teenager I have enjoyed surfing and hiking near the rock. It is a very rugged part of Western Australia's coastline, the tides and swell can be very unpredicatable. In the past fishermen and surfers have been lost to the Indian Ocean in this area.

This recording was taken on Easter Sunday. With a strong onshore wind and large swell, I sheltered behind rocks and shrubs close to the shoreline. In the recording you can hear the wind and the swell but also the rocks moving. After listening back to the recording was perplexed by the rock sounds and later realised that they probably originated from my feet as I braced against the wind on the uneven shoreline.


Sugar loaf blogmix by Matt Rösner

Early Winter Stream

This recording was taken in May just after the first winter rains started. Its of a small stream that runs from the top of the Darling Scarp onto the coastal plain near my house in Western Australia.

Water was trickling over the parched rocks and in and around the dried out reeds after a summer and autumn without rain.

- Matt

Farm stream blogmix by Matt Rösner

Woodland behind the dunes

Recorded early one morning in April 2011. The location was a small woodland directly behind coastal sandunes near Byron Bay on the NSW farhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif north coast. The location is on the edge of the Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve, an area that forms a vital stepping stone for migrating birds. Species from north and south-east Australia overlap in the area, providing unusually diverse plant and animal communities. These types of habitats are some of my favourite to record in, there are usually lots of birds about and the dynamics of the soundscape change from day to day with the amount of swell and wave action on the beach. Sometimes the rumble of the waves is a little too much though.
Learn more about Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve here.

Behind the sand dunes by seaworthy

Broken Estuary

In Aprill 2011, I was working on the far north coast of NSW. After considerable rainfall, many of the local estuaries that had been cut off from the ocean by an accumulation of sand now spilled across the beach as tannin stained water flowed to the sea. The overflows cut into the beach, creating new creeklike connections. The sounds here are of the fast flowing water across the beach and between debris, chunks of sand falling from the creek's edges into the water and distinct thunder as a new storm front approaches.

Broken Estuary by seaworthy

Site Listening

Make sure you pay a visit to the wonderful Site Listening website for a collection of sounds and locations in QLD compiled by Lawrence English (Room40, 12k, Touch).

Seaworthy Show Sat 4 June Sydney

Minyon Falls, Nightcap National Park

Nightcap National Park contains extensive areas of lush Gondwana Rainforests and was preserved by a determined group of conservationists in the 1980s. These photos and recordings were made during a brief visit in April 2011 to Minyon Falls. The sound composition here contains a series of recordings made surrounding the creekline leading to the falls themslves. Surrounded by dense forest, there are bird calls (as well as an occasional frog croak) but dominating the recordings are the sounds of the falls themselves that create a background drone running through most of the piece.

Minyon Falls, Nightcap National Park by seaworthy