Field recordings downloadable

Field recordings available for free download here –

http://soundcloud.com/bird-travis/sets/cinema-sculpture/

The accompanying text:

“In May 2011, I assisted with projection at the Media City Film Festival, a very tight-knit, mostly avant-garde festival taking place in cozy downtown Windsor (just across the river from Detroit’s techno festival occurring on the same weekend). The programming was stellar and was augmented by several filmmakers accompanying their work from Europe and North America.

But there was another component to the festival that was slightly separate from the rest – an installation by the French filmmaker and sculptor Silvi Simon. Set up in a darkened corner of the art museum a few blocks from the theatre, the reputation of Silvi’s piece grew as, one by one, patrons made the pilgrimage and came back in awe. Due to the busy screening schedule, it wasn’t until the day of our departure that I was able to make the trip myself.

It was worth the wait. Silvi had two separate rooms projecting what she calls “filmatrucs,” roughly translating to “film things.” The word “thing” is surprisingly useful in this case. It connotes the physical object of the installation, and also its dual film and sculpture components, which may be difficult to describe, somehow separate and overlapping at the same time.

But when I arrived, it seemed obvious to me that the filmatrucs fit quite gracefully in this unexplored territory between film and sculpture. In the middle of each darkened room was a pedestal with a 16mm projector, a row or cluster of suspended pieces of glass, and a small fan. Each room played a 16mm film on a loop lasting a few minutes, projected through the few-dozen pieces of glass, each suspended by wire and waving slowly in the breeze created by the fan.

The effect was as if dozens of mirrors were reflecting the projected image all over the room, each one waving back and forth at different angles and sizes, backwards and forwards, in addition to the original blurred image that reached the far wall. In room one, black-and-white found footage created ghostly human portraits, and in the second room birds massed and dispersed, periodically exploding throughout the room in a breathtaking light display. The whole idea was incredibly simple and elegant in concept and execution.

I noticed immediately that, in this darkened room, the sound of the installation was also striking. The projectors chugged continuously, shuddering periodically as the splice slid through the gate. The fan whirred, and the glass pieces tinkled magically against each other. It was absorbing and beguiling, especially along with the mysterious nature of the images.

So with Silvi’s blessing, I returned just before leaving town armed with my field recorder. After surreptitiously tripping the motion sensor so the projectors would run continuously, I set up the recorder and sat with each room for thirty minutes. The sound environment was mechanically steady, precise, and yet very organic and uninterrupted by man, giving the impression of reaching the heart of a cinema forest.

Both recordings are unaltered save for beginning and end edits, and although they reflect the limitations of my built-in Edirol mic setup, to some degree they still capture a very unique sound environment.

-Travis Bird, New Orleans, 4 May 2012”

March reviews for Foxy D., collected

And from March on Foxy D. –

Crabskull, “Jovian Black Opera” (Prairie Fire Tapes)

Formication, “The Eyes of Erodern Reviema” (Small Doses)

Jefferson Mayday Mayday, “G Threshold” (Hot Releases)

Tim Coster, “A Place In The Sun” (Fictitious Sighs)

Bickley-Bonerz-Capanni-Marlyn-Roedelius-Way, “American Steamboat” (Erototox Decodings)

Bass Communion, “Cenotaph” (Tonefloat)

Zeitkratzer / Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Old School” (Zeitkratzer)

Viktor Timofeev, “Give Health999” (Lo Bit Landscapes)

Kraus, “A Journey Through the First Dimension With Kraus” (Palto Flats)

Fat History Month, “A Gorilla” (Sweaters and Pearls)

Mountain Cult 7″ (Self-released)

Dome feature

April reviews for Foxy Digitalis

A dozen April reviews so far posted on Foxy Digitalis:

Inverz, “My Machines” (Granny)

Marianne Pousseur, “Only” (Sub Rosa)

Niski Szum, “Songs From the Woods” (AudioTong)

Nathan Salsburg, “Affirmed” (No Quarter)

Anstam, “Dispel Dances” (50 Weapons)

PitchBen, “Pitch Slap” (Compost)

Humcrush & Sidsel Endresen, “Ha!” (Rune Grammofon)

Lars Leonhard, “1549” (BineMusic)

Mavis Beacon, “Inside Every Second” (False)

Gastón Arévalo, “Deriva” (Sweat Lodge Guru)

Akhet, “Akhet” (Tonefloat)

Soft Shoulder, “Von Guts” (Effeminate)

Field recording available for download

Available for download on my SoundCloud page is a field recording taken after a recent flash flood. Enjoy!

From the notes:

“On the night of 3 April, 2012, New Orleans experienced its first flash flood of the year after heavy rains. This also happened to be the first flood I had experienced as a resident of the city. By midnight, the rain had stopped, leaving a serene quiet and only scattered, bright tufts of low fast-moving clouds standing out against orange streetlights and the purple glow of the central city.

The flood waters reached to the edge of the sidewalk in front of our house, falling just an inch or two short of the exhaust system of the Ford Explorer parked out in front. The adjacent street, a relatively large one, was almost entirely covered even in the left lane, although cars and trucks occasionally slogged by (the cars slowly and carefully, the trucks not so much). Most of the neighborhood cars were parked in the grass on that street’s neutral ground (the green space between the two lane directions).

As the water slowly receded, I noticed little bubbling noises among other things, and saw several pockets of air bubbles rising above the water. Although I remain unsure of the source of these sounds, they lent a tranquility to the scene that contrasted sharply with the storm that had just blown through.

Recorded (sheepishly) with iPhone; levels raised slightly and fade-ins/fadeouts added, otherwise untreated.”

Mint Rut: Birthplace of America’s Music

Stockhausen review

My review on contemporary ensemble Zeitkratzer’s CD of excerpts from Stockhausen’s From The Seven Days :

http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=30141

The ultimate isolation of the composer and performer as individuals?