A Message from the Artist:

This is MADA, a collection of some of my favorite audio recordings captured during my 2016
expedition to Madagascar. These sounds are part of a much larger project
executed with the support of Centre ValBio, The Safina Center, and the National
Geographic Society, and is featured in the film “Remixing Madagascar” which premiered
in 2020.

If you would like to learn more about our work on this project, please visit
RemixingMadagascar.com. To learn more about my work, visit benmirin.com or follow
me @benmirin on Instagram.

On a personal note, working in Madagascar was the first time I truly fell in love with the
art of field recording. As a musician, I record and sample sounds from nature into
electronic music and perform at concert venues to promote conservation around the
world. Madagascar was my first expedition to capture my own sounds for later use in
music, and when I met my subjects in their natural habitats I was astounded by how
profound it was to sit immersed in nature, and simply to absorb the voices of my
surroundings. Each of the voices you will hear in this collection has been shaped by
millions of years of evolution to resonate and balance with other acoustic elements in its
environment, and communicate critical signals for animals to survive. That I can be a
vehicle for those voices, and bring them into your homes and lives, is an honor and a
privilege.

Special thanks are due to all the members of my team, from the United States and
Madagascar, who helped make this work possible. Please watch Remixing Madagascar
to meet them and experience their amazing work.

Thank you for listening!

Benjamin H. Mirin, Ph.D. aka Ecotone

A Note on Conservation:
In just a few more years, it is entirely possible that some of the voices in this collection
will have been extinguished forever. As of 2020, over 90 percent of Madagascar’s native
forests have been destroyed for agriculture, and they are still being cut down today. If
you would like to learn how you can support conservation in Madagascar, please visit
CentreValBio.org.

Liner Notes: available upon request

Example:

Track 01: Dawn in Talatakely
Dawn in Ranomafana National Park is our first chance to listen to this forest waking up.
As the sounds of nocturnal insects fade with the dark of night, birds and lemurs begin
rustling through stands of bamboo and broad-leaf trees on their way to the day’s first
feeding. Magpie Robins are the first songbirds to announce themselves, singing to
proclaim that they have survived the night and are still guarding their territories from the
day before. Soon after, Pitta-like Ground Rollers begin to whoop! The symphony builds
to a crescendo around 5:30am, in what is known as a dawn chorus. It is perhaps the
best time of day to hear the true richness of Ranomafana.

Copyright Notice
The materials in this album are not to be shared or distributed without the express
consent of their creator, Benjamin Mirin. Copyright 2018, Registration No.
PA0002114909.

Album Art by Andy Thomas

Waking Up In Ranomafana

Spottiswoode7

Shoeboxx Recordings Monthly Mix Series
SBXX15: MUDCHUTE

Discover @mudchuteofficial
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mudchuteofficial
Bandcamp: https://mudchute.bandcamp.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mudchute_

Tracklist: https://www.mixcloud.com/shoeboxx/mix-series-sbxx15-mudchute/
swell - I’m Sorry (feat. Shiloh)
Flybear - Mittens (Oh!)
Mura Masa - Shibuya
Mudchute - Lovers
Lianne La Havas - Unstoppable (FKJ Remix)
Mudchute - Where I Needed to Be 
Flybear - Soon…
Mudchute - Try a Little Harder
VBND - Thoughts of U (Mudchute Remix)
BANKS - Gemini Feed (swell remix)
Mudchute - todayitsblue
swell - I Want To Take You Everywhere

Cover art by : Kate Collopy 
https://www.instagram.com/kittycatkatecollopy

_THIS MIX IS FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY_
copyright disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

MIX SERIES SBXX15: MUDCHUTE

Happy New Year!

The species in this song are: African Fish Eagle, Blue Wildebeest, African Elephant, African Lion, Tropical Boubou, Hadada Ibis, Grey-crowned Crane, Common Hippo, White Rhino, Lesser Epauletted Fruit Bat, Woodland Kingfisher, Army Ants, Pel's Fishing Owl, African Reed Frogs, Ring-necked Dove, Trumpeter Hornbill, Crimson-Breasted Gonolek, African Jacana, African Swamphen, African Scops Owl, Spotted Hyena, Burchell's Zebra, Baboons in the evening, Black Cuckoo, catfish splashing, crickets and wind in the reeds

Human voices: Spoken word by Dr. Steve Boyes, music by residents of Seronga Village, Botswana

African traditional instruments: Behr Santuri Safari Instruments by Emile Hoogenhout

Additional Sounds: Okavango Wilderness Project, Macaulay Library

Image: The Okavango Delta as seen from space (Wikipedia)

Okavango

In the hill forests of Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand, White-handed Gibbons sing in the distance, while the heavy wingbeats of hornbills can be heard as they fly into feed on the fruits of a strangler fig.

Hornbills & Gibbons - Kaeng Krachan

Hornbills & Gibbons - Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand

3 minute excerpt from the 207 minute nature soundscape album: Papuan Dawn. 

Hear the full album here:
http://www.listeningearth.com/play/album/87PapuanDawn.php
or download:
http://www.listeningearth.com/LE/p-146

Experience the mountain rainforest of Papua New Guinea’s remote Huon peninsula.

It is dark, before dawn. Insects chime and tiny frogs call from hidden places on the forest floor. As the light pales, the first birds begin singing. Prominent among them is the Regent Whistler, ruling the dawn chorus with whipcrack calls that echo through the trees. A soft chorus of cicadas begin fizzing intermittently, as more songbirds join in.  

Over the next hour there is a gradual transition from nocturnal voices to daytime birdsong. Once the dawn chorus ebbs, birds and insects are heard discreetly. For such a rich environment, there are periods of relative quiet. However rare denizens of these mountain rainforests make themselves heard, including ground-dwelling rails and scrub fowl. Meanwhile the various songs of exotic fantails, ifrits, robins, jewel babblers, meladectes and melampitas come and go, while fruit pigeons keep up a soft booming from the treetops.

This album is one continuous recording, allowing you to hear this precious forest environment as it is.

Papuan Dawn

Papuan Dawn: Album Sample

The album begins at dawn in the Capertee Valley, NSW, with the melodious song of the Australian Magpie filling the misty morning air. 

Each track on this album features typical Australian birdsong from a different habitat of the Australian bush - open country, mallee, wet eucalypt forest, coastal forest, dry woodland and montane forest. 

For more details and see https://wildambience.com/albums/birdsong-of-the-australian-bush

Birdsong of the Australian Bush

'Birdsong of the Australian Bush' - Album Sample

Recorded in predawn light by a swamp in Ulu Muda's rainforest. In the latter part of this sample you can hear the unusual calls of Rough-sided Frogs (Pulchrana glandulosa). Agile Gibbons can be heard singing in the background along with the occasional chattering calls of Banded Langur.

Predawn Ambience - Ulu Muda

Predawn Ambience - Ulu Muda, Malaysia

with low grunts and high whoops, all part of a highly structured underwater animal music

This is a section from Google's fabulous Pattern Radio project, (https://patternradio.withgoogle.com/)— thousands of hours of humpback whale song publicly available for anyone to explore. Here the background noise removed to improve the sound.

Precise location of this sound clip is:
2015-02-19T02:36:39.263Z	2015-02-19T02:36:53.120Z

A varied humpback song

This is a sample containing excerpts from the one hour album "New Guinea: Lowland Rainforest Dawn" available at www.wildambience.com/albums/new-guinea-lowland-dawn-chorus

New Guinea is home to the largest expanse of rainforest in the Asia-Pacific region (and the third largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon and Congo). Vast areas of undisturbed forest can be found throughout the island and its biodiversity is simply amazing.

In 2019, I spent five days in an area of pristine lowland rainforest on the Birds Head Peninsula in West Papua. This album, ‘New Guinea: Dawn in Lowland Rainforest’, was recorded on my final morning at this location. Rising early, well before dawn, I placed the recording gear in a stunning area of forest I had scouted the previous day. The album covers a period of one hour from predawn darkness, through the rich dawn chorus and ends as the soundscape settles and the diurnal insect activity increases.

New Guinea: Lowland Rainforest Dawn

New Guinea: Lowland Rainforest Dawn - Album Sample

Traveling the world, making music from nature. benmirin.com