Bring your own batteries and extension cords.
Transistor Ga Ga
An augmented field recording by Robert Cole Rizzi
Often, the most beautiful sounds are all around us. We just have to learn to pay attention to them. Sometimes, however, to access these sounds, we must listen in ways our ears alone can’t accomplish. Case in point, this recording of a transformer station from Robert Cole Rizzi. Rizzi’s three-minute track is an atmospheric tour de force. It combines the inherent buzzing of the transformer with the sound of the structure itself vibrating, plus sonic evidence of the presence of electromagnetic radiation. Writes Rizzi, “You can hear a low rumble I believe is the current running through the wires and fog condensing into drops hitting the thinner zigzag beams of the mast as they fall.”
To access this depth of sonic experience, Rizzi employs the Geofon, or what I described as “the landlubber’s hydrophone in [a post](https://disquiet.com/2020/01/14/geofon-lom/) earlier this year. The electromagnetic information comes courtesy of another device, called the Priezor. Both are from the company LOM.
Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/rizzi](https://soundcloud.com/rizzi/transformer-station-september-21st-2020). More from Robert Cole Rizzi, who is based in Kolding, Denmark, at [twitter.com/RobertColeRizzi](https://twitter.com/RobertColeRizzi).
Real World, Real Time
Hannes Pasqualini processes sound on location.
The Italian musician, designer, and illustrator Hannes Pasqualini debuts a new project in which he reworks real-world audio in real time. The series, of which this video is the first, is titled Sounds on Location. The above clip, about four minutes long, shows him setting up on a bench. White noise and passing traffic fill the stereo spectrum. Then, about 30 seconds in, the video fades to black and then back again, the sounds now running through Pasqualini’s iPad. The processed result emerges from the source audio: more rhythmic, more foregrounded, spare noise given improvised purpose through compositional intent.
Pasqualini outlines his approach as follows:
>Step 1: go to a place that inspires me, record sounds
>
>Step 2: create some loops from these sounds
>
>Step 3: create a little track on location, mostly with the sounds I have recorded in step 1
Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4aYTsUKnow). More from Pasqualini (who collaborates with me on the recent comics I’ve been posting) at [papernoise.net](https://www.papernoise.net/).
Current Listens: Questlove(s RBG) + Meditative Loops
Heavy rotation, lightly annotated
This is my weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰
NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ Friday night, after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Questlove of the Roots spun [three hours of Radiohead](https://youtu.be/BZpUUXhWf8w), chopped and screwed, as he put it, thick with reverb and delay, echoed to dubby extremes. He talked in between songs, and during them, about fending off stress-eating, and about his own political awakening during the Obama campaign, and how when he plays early Radiohead he has to remind himself that the band once employed what he calls “mortal instruments.” The screen displays details from his DJ software, confirming the mournfully slow BPM. (Thanks for the tip, Alex Hawthorn.)
▰ Jeannine Schulz keeps up the relentless pace of slow-music releases with [*Unfolding Circles*](https://jeannineschulz.bandcamp.com/album/unfolding-circles), five tracks of melty loops made from guitar parts and, of course, the textural quality of the degraded tape itself. (Based in Hamburg, Germany.)
▰ Three lengthy tracks of music for meditation comprise the [*Zazen*](https://insomniachotel.bandcamp.com/album/zazen) set by Insomniac Hotel. Dense, murky drones with melodic and percussive undercurrents. (Based in New Jersey.)
Listening to “King Lear”
Thanks to the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
If you study insults, then “King Lear” is an endless resource. If you study sound, there’s still some solid material.
. . .
“the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.”
This moment (for sound-studies types) in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” is from when Edgar (in disguise) is tricking dear old (and horrifically blinded) dad Gloucester from jumping off a cliff.
The cliff isn’t actually there, of course. After the avoided jump, the two try to listen in the opposite direction, which is to say up. Edgar, who has convinced Gloucester that they have indeed jumped but by chance survived, reports:
“the shrill-gorged lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard”
And then King Lear shows up, as does a gentleman. The observational tables are turned when Edgar asks, “Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?”
And the Gentleman replies:
“Most sure and vulgar: every one hears that,
Which can distinguish sound.”
It’s a beautiful turnaround.
. . .
If Shakespeare is even remotely your thing, take advantage of the rare benefit of Covid-19, which is that the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival has been presenting “King Lear” online for free, due to social distancing concerns, and that those shows are available worldwide to anyone with internet. The thing is, they’re only available live, and as of this writing, only three performances remain. They stream at [youtube.com/SFShakes](https://youtube.com/SFShakes). The way the troupe makes use of Zoom, the platform on which they perform, is amazing. Each actor is alone is her/his/their room, against a green screen, speaking their lines live, the individuals then combined against a background image as if on stage together. I watched last Sunday, and was blown away, not just by the work, but by the ingenuity.
. . .
One more sonic observation: because all the actors are performing on their lonesome, each spoken voice appears from within its own room tone. Each voice carries with it the space in which that voice is enunciating. Each actor is subject to a different echo, a different hum. They’re all on the same virtual stage, but they’re all in very different rooms. The strange ever-shifting background sound, the way each voice has its own contours, its own dimensions, makes a perfect match for the slightly low-resolution shapes that each human form takes on screen, as their features blur into the shared virtual background. Per chance the image on the festival’s website, at [sfshakes.org](http://www.sfshakes.org/programs/free-shakespeare-in-the-park?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2ezJyO326wIVrB-tBh2mfwXQEAAYASAAEgJTt_D_BwE), is from the scene described above. That’s, from left to right, Yohana Ansari-Thomas as Edgar, Phil Lowery as Gloucester, and Jessica Powell as Lear.
. . .
There are three more [shows on the calendar](http://www.sfshakes.org/programs/free-shakespeare-in-the-park/performance-schedule-and-free-access-4351ea60-458d-4ff2-a030-4e35962367c0): Sunday, September 20, at 4pm; Saturday, September 26, at 7pm; and Sunday, September 27, at 4pm.