Nervous and voyeuristic, abandoned and empty.

Fejhed - Drinking Spit (from the s/t  CS on Chondritic Sound)

Atlantic Grey Seals (Halichoerus grypus) at Donna Nook National Nature Reserve, Lincolnshire. 

http://www.lincstrust.org.uk/donna-nook

With hundreds of cows and pups only a few metres away from the coastal path it was possible to record at levels that helped reduce the roar of surf and unwanted noises from shipping. 

Recorded at 1am on the 7th December 2015 with a pair of MKH40’s arranged ORTF into a SD MixPre and 702.


Seal Sounds at Donna Nook

Performed by Elisabeth Smalt. 
Released on the CD Subvoice - unsounds.com/shop/physical/subvoice

Music For Viola

from KR044 IANNIS XENAKIS - Persepolis (LP / DL) out on march 2nd 2018

IANNIS XENAKIS - Persepolis (excerpt)

This underwater recording highlights the hive of activity in the coral reef just off the beach in Amarynthos, Euboea, Greece. The recording was made mid afternoon, with the hydrophones placed on the reef bed at a shallow depth of around 1.5 metres. The reef is in good health with a beautiful ecosystem of coral and sea life. Amongst the sound we hear the sound of Pistol Shrimps that use their claws to shoot a bubble bullet to stun their prey. There are also reef cleaner fish as well as the sounds of the coral itself. 

Thanks to Jez Riley French for help identifying some of the species.

Sound Devices Mix Pre 6 + 2 x JRF D-Series Hydrophones
Recorded 18.07.2019

Coral Reef - South Euboean Gulf, Greece

vertikal

I love anthills - as a kid I loved watching the ants work, schleping building materials and prey home to the habitat. Nowadays I love listening to them. This is my first recording using the LOM Audio Geofon in a combination with an Aquarian Audio H2a. I had my DIY "needle" (4mm threaded rod about 30 cm/12" long)attached to the Geofon so I could go under the anthill - the hydrophone was placed on top of the hill... you can see the placement of each on the photo.
The combination works great, lots of low end from the Geofon - the hydrophone picks up the highs... I'm really happy with the results.
Recorded with Sound Devices MixPre 3II 32 bit float - In post I normalized to -1dB and took out the high end on the Geofon track. 
Enjoy

Anthill LOM Geofon & Aquarian Hydrophone

Andi Schnellmann - electric bass
Manuel Troller - electric guitars
David Meier - drums and percussion

SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER "209 Aphelion" from "5" (Cuneiform Records)

TR094 - Iztok Koren - 'Fire Is Armor'

taken from the project 'mineral veins' (dissolves)  natural substances breaking down under environmental pressures, interactions and distortions. 

(recorded using JrF d-series hydrophones & adapted geophones)

mineral veins | Lugnas Dissolve (extract) - headphones / speakers needed

What a strange, odd, mixed-up year it has been.  The yellow spanner of Covid-19 really wrecked a lot of plans. I was all booked to travel to Estonia to record, but it had to be cancelled.   Very noticeable was the sunlight, perhaps it was because there was few jet trails, but when the day was cloudless the sunlight could be absolutely dazzling, it had the strange effect of making it feel like we were living in paradise.     Because of the restrictions I am so glad the woods is only within a moderate cycle distance from my home.  I am very fortunate that I have two fairly good places to record relatively close by.  I even found a wild sand dune area not even five kilometers away,  I hope to record more there in the future.   Disc 1 track 2 is from a much longer recording, it is probably one of the best recordings made during the 2020 season, I had made a few recordings, near the stream, then a bit less close, then a bit further away and another even further away, as I wanted a sound where the stream was a suggestion rather than really dominating the sound picture.  The Blue Tits nested in a cavity block in the wall of my home, there is an vent on the inside of the block, so I only needed to place the microphone up to that to get a fantastic close perspective recording.  
I include two recordings of the Blue tits as they sounded so different when I recorded them a week later.  Sometimes I would get great results by leaving the old Marantz recorder hidden in a bushy place while I go not too far away to record with the new recorder, I love how I had no idea of what it has captured for me, only later when the track loaded on the computer did I get to see if it captured anything worthwhile.  This was the case with Blackbird - alarm calls (Track 3 on disc 2).  I think the peaks came in at about minus six db.  This year was my first time to use Contact microphones and a Hydrophone.    
At the beginning of April my dad Desmond died, he was 89, a great age.  Apart from Covid, we could see he wasn’t going to live much longer, he had been deteriorating noticeably for months up to that.  Why then are the covers for the two discs so strange ?  
A birdsong production should have birds on it !   My dad was big into sun power and indeed wind power even long before it became popular.  Over by my workshop he had placed a few sun power panels on the wall, these were wired into a small room to a panel on the wall with six switches.  I thought it a good way to remember him by including a picture of part of his panel for disc one front cover.  I was going to include the six switches in the picture, but my heart of hearts said no, it didn’t look good, too much scruffy brown, but I include it in the zipped folder (If you are buying it on Bandcamp)so you can see what I am talking about.  I had almost chosen it, as it occurred to me one morning that the six switches are like the levels of lockdown (I hate that term, but I have to use it here) thankfully we didn’t have a level six, maybe that is like in a movie I saw where the authorities came and boarded up a house with the people still inside.  In the end I used the part of the photo with the meter.   
The butterflies . . . Dessie we call him, was always interested in butterflies, that is where I got my interest in nature, as a child he used to bring us for walks up along the canal to see the wild flowers and butterflies.  The picture comes from one drawer of his small collection of Irish butterflies he put together maybe around the late 1940’s or 1950’s ??  Very few of them are even in one piece now, this drawer just looked the part, it was all mixed up and spoiled like the year had been, the summer we never really had, at least not the way we wanted or had planned it.

A Strange Year - Disc One - (Album Sample)

Sound recordist Colin Hunter 
Founder of the World Sounds project

Coral Reef - South Euboean Gulf, Greece

World-Sounds.org

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