2022 in Sound
Introduction
This post contains assorted audio projects (in no
particular order) that I worked on during 2022. The purpose
of this post is mainly archival. All pieces are licensed
Public Domain (Creative Commons 0) and can be downloaded.
On most browsers this involves right clicking on the link
and saving the file. Feel free to use them in any way you
want!
Stereo Hydrophone Recordings
This section contains stereo hydrophone (underwater
microphone) recordings resulting from an interdisciplinary
collaboration investigating human-water relations in
Taipei, Taiwan (Jul – Aug 2022).
Jingmei River 景美溪, Daonan Riverside Park 道南河濱公園
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/jingmei
Songluo Creek 松羅溪, Datong Township 大同鄉
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/songluo
Tamsui River 淡水河, Guandu Pier 關渡碼頭
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/tamsui-guandu
Tamsui 淡水, Shizitou Fishing Platform 獅子頭釣魚台
This recording was shared at the 2022 CREATORS program, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, as part of the Ocean Encountering River: Aquatic Aesthetics of An Island project curated by Dr Hsieh I-Yi 謝一誼 (Taiwan NYCU).
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/tamsui-shizitou [Download audio only]
Tamsui 淡水, Shizitou 獅子頭
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/tamsui-shizitou-two
Xindian River 新店溪, Bitan 碧潭
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/xindian
52 Jia Wetland 52 甲溼地(五股排水), Yilan 宜蘭
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/yilan
Sound Portraits
Boat Rowing
This post presents a minimally edited field recording,
this time of me rowing a small row boat on Lake Saimaa in
Eastern Finland. This post is partly motivated by a
desire to reflect on my experiences over the past year
recording with binaural microphones. I have done most
such recordings with the same setup, namely using a
handheld recorder and in-ear omnidirectional
microphones1. What has
attracted me to this kind of setup is the way that I can,
in a sense, directly share what I have heard. Unlike
conventional microphones, my physiology (head size, ear
shape) will uniquely affect any captured audio, thus
making for a more “intimate” listening experience when
shared. Another factor is the unobstructed nature of
recording this way, being portable and inconspicuous (and
perhaps also less intrusive). Lastly, there is no
monitoring involved, with my body effectively being both
a microphone and a stand. In this sense, my own presence
is always apparent, if not only due to recording
imperfections, such as handling noise, etc. Through this,
I have certainly gained an appreciation for attentive
mindful listening, keeping my body as still as possible
for the duration of a recording.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/boat-rowing
Sound Portrait of a Buddhist Shrine
This is a minimally edited field-recording2 of a small makeshift shrine
dedicated to Guanyin 觀音, on the way up to Hushan 虎山 in
Taipei. This post is partly inspired from re-watching a
documentary on acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton [1]. The film highlights his
method for capturing sound portraits, the aural
equivalent of unedited landscape photography, with the
“lens” being our microphone [2]. He argues against
‘sonically Photoshopping’ such works, drawing on the
analogy of a fabricated landscape photograph that
haphazardly employs elements from different parts of the
world. Hempton suggests that mixing different sounds
together in a studio to make the perfect portrait would
not effectively communicate our surroundings, and our
relationships therein. For today’s post, I tried to keep
this kind of attitude in mind, experimenting with
microphone positioning and timing. The recording presents
a soundscape of a hiking trail, wherein sounds of nature,
people and “electroacoustic” religion permeate and help
index one’s sense of place. In the snapshot we hear, for
example, the continuous nianfo 念佛 emerging from a
small Buddha-name recitation device (nianfoji 念佛).
This then becomes layered with other electroacoustic
sounds, such as those from the nearby Zhenguang Zen
Temple 真光禪寺. In terms of edits, I reduced the original
recording from seven minutes to five, together with
adding slight compression and filtering.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/portait-buddhist-shrine
Bamboo 竹
No commentary.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/bamboo
Compositions from Field Recordings
Cottage Pier Composition
For this post I have compiled a short “drone” (or
noise) inspired hydrophone composition made during the
previous summer. All sounds are from Lake Saimaa
(Finland), recorded from a cottage pier with a single
Jez Riley
French hydrophone. As with my previous sound blogs, I
used a limited palette of effects, however, this time
with the addition of a delay. Today’s post arises from
considering potential research questions within sound
studies, and the ecoacoustics of water bodies and
underwater soundscapes. Not having a background in
ecology, I have been focusing on the contributions that
humanities scholars and artists have made in this area
[3][4][5]. I am especially curious
about the potential of what Kim De Wolff and Rina C.
Faletti et al. have termed as hydrohumanities
[6]. For future posts,
I plan to experiment more in this area, utilising
cultural approaches to the study of underwater ecologies.
This includes questions of environmental change, and
especially the rising levels of underwater noise
pollution worldwide [7]. I am keen to read these
issues through the lens of sound epistemology
(“acoustemology”), involving efforts to understand the
didactic role of sound and listening [8].
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/pier-composition
Laptop Composition
This post stems from further explorations of the
“lowercase” [9] genre
of sound art, taking inspiration from the seminal work by
Steve Roden, Forms of Paper [10]. For this blog, I
attached a Jez
Riley French contact microphone to my laptop and
recorded any sounds picked up during a period of
university studies. The resulting taps and hums were then
liberally experimented with, however, keeping in mind a
limited set of effects as per my previous sound blogs.
The result is a somewhat hectic compilation of sound,
distantly reminding me of free Jazz improvisation, and
one of my favourite experimental albums by DJ Sniff
[11]. Looking back at
my interest in electronic music production, a reoccurring
theme has been a fascination with the “gaps” between
electroacoustic recordings. This involves minute details
that, when amplified, reveal unexpected textures and
further sonic “threads” to follow. All this, combined
with my seemingly unending interest with banal sounds
(refrigerator hums, air conditioners), gives way to the
following piece. While still a little rough, I look
forward to honing this kind of approach more in the
future.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/laptop-composition
Quarantine Composition
In this post I have collected and pieced together
different sounds heard during my recent travel to Taiwan
and quarantine just north of Taipei. The motivation for
this (and future sound blogs), is to improve my
understanding of phonography informed soundscape
composition, involving minimal editing of field
recordings [12]. This
is in addition to improving my skills in composition,
field recording and digital audio workstations in
general. To facilitate this, I established some arbitrary
ground rules to guide this process, involving namely
tools and techniques used. Firstly, I only use sounds
recorded by me, and secondly, I limited palette of
digital effects to an equaliser, compressor, pitch
shifter and reverb 2. Lastly, as
this is a blog post, I decided to set a hard limit of
five minutes for the final composition. While looped,
samples were not “played” via plugins (or MIDI
sequencers), rather I sought to maintain any original
flow in the recordings. I used layering liberally to
enhance this, all the while trying to keep in mind the
original context and recognisability of the sounds.
Although still reminiscent of a consolidation of
“soundscape holiday slides” [13], this is an area that I
nevertheless hope to develop further.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/quarantine-composition
Taipei Metro Composition
This post arises from consolidating and experimenting
with different field recordings of the Taipei Mass Rapid
Transit (MRT) system. During my time living in Taipei,
riding on the metro has been one of my favourite
occasions for urban listening. This is especially due to
the fruits of the 2015 “Taipei Soundscape Project,” an
urban sound design initiative for developing the acoustic
environment of the MRT [14][15]. Based on the protogenic
musings on soundscape design by R. Murray Schafer (1933 –
2021) NO_ITEM_DATA:schaferSoundscapeOurSonic1993, a
direct goal of the project was to encourage awareness
between space and sound. These design choices have
certainly made an impact on me, and I always look forward
to exploring more of the soundscapes of transit in
Taiwan. In this sense, the following sound composition is
also a humble nod to Barry Truax’s 1996 piece
Pendlerdrøm (“Commuter dream”) [17]. Commissioned for a
Danish audience, this “soundscape composition” involves
exploring themes of commuting and transit, with
recordings from the Danish Railway system. In terms of
this post, I kept the same limitations in terms of
effects as before, however, with the addition of Xenakio’s
PaulStretch plugin, and also a delay effect. I
recorded all sound assets with a pair of Soundman OKM II binaural in-ear
microphones and my trusty Zoom H5.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/metro-composition
Zazen Composition
In this post, I have explored some of the subtleties
of sounds arising and heard during Zazen. Taking
note of the “lowercase”
pieces of Steve Roden 3, this post
amplified subtle noises recorded during different
25-minute meditation periods. The scarcity of (musically)
interesting sounds meant that various electronic hums
(fridges, air conditioners), played an important role via
creating layered drones. As with my previous sound
blog, I kept the same restrictions in terms of
technology and effects, however, with the addition of the
LKC
Variator. This is a fantastic REAPER script that
randomises a sound file in terms of different parameters
(such as pitch, length, position). This created the
chaotic bleeps found through the composition, which could
potentially serve as an apt metaphor for the monkey
mind! I recorded all sounds with a Zoom H5, and a
pair of Soundman OKM II binaural microphones.
🎧 Listen (with visualisation): ilmarikoria.xyz/zazen-composition
References
Footnotes
Zoom H5 and Soundman OKM II binaural
microphones.
Equipment used: Zoom H5 +
2x Clippy XLR EM272 (mics ~25cm apart).