We Laugh So Much

Alexandra Spence – “Do jellyfish breathe?”

A reworked version of this piece has been released as the album 'a veil, the sea' as a cassette tape or download on the Mappa label. You can purchase a copy here:

https://mappa.bandcamp.com/album/a-veil-the-sea

During Sydney’s most recent lockdown I submerged* a 15 minute-long piece of cassette tape in seawater collected from a local beach. The cassette tape contained a field recording of waves, and a recording of my voice offering a (non-definitive, and non-hierarchical) list of things found in the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve been thinking about connection with bodies of water, as well as connections between bodies and water, and how we might reimagine our bodily limitations to examine the things that connect us to each other and to our surroundings. The sea has always felt like home, and having lived on both the east and west edges of the Pacific Ocean it has become a place of connection for me.

I’ve been thinking about the Pacific Ocean as a home – not only to marine creatures and sea currents – but to the obscure movements of global trade, offshore data barges, and sunken satellites deactivated and dumped from space. Vast bodies may seem infinite, but nothing is – the depths hold mysterious, beautiful, and troubling things.

…Bottlenose dolphins, ancient artefacts, Lego pieces, approximately 36 species of shark, underwater mines…

Imagining an infinite ocean has led to overfishing, floating plastic-particle gyres, lost whales (as a result of the underwater din of shipping and naval industries), and an international sense of unaccountability.

“… Do jellyfish breathe?” is a kind of sonic traversing of oceanic layers, exploring imaginary landscapes, entwining and encountering unequal forms, such as breath with wave, fish with fishing line, along the way.

*Submerging the tape in salt water is an expansion of an ongoing project in which I bury tape loops 7-second field recordings on tape loops before burying them in the earth at the location in which they were recorded. I imagine this as a collaboration of sorts — I make a recording and the physical variables of each place and location alter it. While the magnetic coating of the tape retains sonic remnants of the recorded sounds of the place, the physicality of the tape ribbon retains material remnants of the place: sand, salt, other, which, in turn, impart audibly on the recording in the form of crackles, scratches, tape-warp, and hiss.

Alexandra Spence - Do Jellyfish Breathe (excerpt)

Ticket

pigeon mindcontrol (live set interlude)

Diffusion/Disintegration

Diffusion

untitled 1 :)

New album released.

「森と海」
Bandcamp page
https://satoshisugiyama.bandcamp.com/album/--3

----- caution ------
 I'm in the process of making the CD. I will send it to you by surface mail  as soon as it’s ready.


以下、アルバムについて。


「森と海がまじわるところ」

鬱蒼とした森の記憶を辿るように、レコーダーを手にし土と枯れ葉の小道を登る。
まず、その小高い森の中心と思われる場所で一度目の録音。
そして同じ場所でレコーダーのマイクを空に向け二度目の録音。
遠くに僅かに波音が聴こえた。

その音に誘われて、数日後、友人たちと森を抜け海に降り立つ。
岩場の潮溜りにハイドロフォンを落とす。
マイクを通して海中の音を聴くのはそれが初めてで、海の中から外の世界を見ているような気持ちになった。
小さな生き物たちの気配、波音と森のざわめきと
すべてがまじわるところに僕はいた。


※この録音を聴き返すうちに、10年前に三木葉苗が書いた「美の基準についての覚え書き」を思い出し読み返す。合わせて読んでももらえるといいなと思いこれを付属することにしました。

録音と編集　杉山聡
絵　三木咲良
言葉　三木葉苗

森と海 -Excerpts-

[{*9^e}] ≠ Simple records of a good man's life, as a single symbol (“open subset”)

Recorded 1965
Included in
“The Beginning of Japanese Electroacoustic Vol.12”
Toshi Ichiyanagi  “TheWorld” Environmental Music
On Sale
https://sound3.buyshop.jp/items/78457047

The World

Disc 1-2. 空_ 一柳 慧/ Kū_ Toshi Ichiyanagi

SenSen - The Organist

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𓆝 ⠀⠀⠀⠀𓆟 ⠀⠀⠀𓆞⠀⠀⠀ 𓆝 ⠀⠀ 𓆟⠀⠀ 𓆝⠀  𓆟

soundcloud:tracks:1556468017

soundcloud:tracks:1554868678

untitled 1 :)

The Comfort Of Dieing In A Small Room