Touch Radio is the online audio-station (cum netlabel) offspring of the excellent record label Touch. Previous freely downloadable entries in the occasional series have included work by the likes of Steve Roden (coiner of the term “lowercase sound”) and field-recording eminence (and Cabaret Voltaire member) Chris Watson, as well as Fennesz, Brandon LaBelle and Stephan Mathieu, just to name a few.
The most recent Touch Radio ‘cast, its 27th, was posted just yesterday. Titled “notturno,” it’s a naked field recording by Guðni Franzson — an hour-long tape of birds in the woods about an hour east of Reykjavik, Iceland (MP3). Even at a mere 96kbps, the file contains a delightful array of natural song. And one should probably be thankful for the compression, which keeps the file under40mb in girth.
Franzson writes, briefly, on the site, providing some context: “I wasn’t at all tired in the morning but started listening to the incredible birds in the woods and down in the mob until day broke. I was sorry not to have the recording machine with me that night but decided to return the night after with my gear, hoping the birds would still be there.” Fortunately for us, they were.