Brief mentions each Sunday of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ Nathan Wolek’s bench 6, every morning edits a year’s worth of just pre-pandemic field recordings made at DeLeon Springs State Park in Florida. The cuts jump around in time: near silence, then water, then chatter, then an announcement, a car, bugs, all at various volume levels. Moments of extended natural silence glitch into stutters of quite different experiences of the exact same spot. Wolek’s approach both enlivens and gives lie to the concept of a soundscape, emphasizing inherent change over idealized stasis.
https://nathanwolek.bandcamp.com/album/bench-6-every-morning
▰ A live performances by a string ensemble of a beautiful work by Roger Eno from a series of EPs. This is “Venerable Dilemma.”
▰ Eliza Brown has been posting weekly selections of field recordings since September of last year. The one from two weeks back, “TLY Week 31 – February 3, 2023” (“TLY” is for “the listening year”), is seven-plus minutes of an icy creek — the highlight being that Brown breaks the near silence by narrating what it is she’s witnessing.
▰ Roily, haunted sounds — muddy with a glistening surface — comprise the track “Language” by Christopher Hanlon. Set this ambient treat on loop.