The surf pounds against the sand. A remnant of a hurricane now past.

Late Saturday night after visiting points south, a young woman walks ahead of her group through the sand lanes between Atlantique and Robbins Rest. She is lost and found.

At the edge of an undeveloped portion of the Fire Island National Seashore dawn breaks to crickets and sparse bird life.

Recorded in Robbins Rest, Fire Island NY in August of 2021. LOM Uši Pros, Sound Devices MixPre-3 II, baffled stereo array

Robbins Rest

Jessamine Bayou is a seasonally flooded forest in the heart of America's Amazon, the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta.

These recordings are taken from overnight "drop rigs" left at the edge of a tributary surrounded cypress swamp and adjacent to a field of saw palmetto. In the evening a diffuse chorus of bird-voiced treefrogs. Crickets and katydids tune up. A cardinal sings its dusk song. By morning the cacophony of katydids is at an end. Material falls from the trees exciting the saw palmetto. The bird song is sparse. The resident cardinal executes a series that seem tailored for the morning.

Recorded June 16-17 2021 in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta of Alabama by David Michael and Michael Clemow. Our gratitude is extended to Ben Raines for guiding us through this area.

Jessamine Bayou

We were lucky to have booked a cabin right as the pandemic took off in New York. Soon a wave of refugees looking for a respite from the confines of a city in lockdown would make their way North. For us, this was not a normal spring. For the inhabitants of the South Branch Grass River it was likely fairly typical. Singing the song of a thousand springs.

Recorded June 10 2020 on the edge of the South Branch Grass River in upstate NY. A drop rig was left overnight and collected before a storm passed over. AT4022, custom boundary array, Sound Devices 702

South Branch Grass River

https://terraneanrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/microphones-are-not-ears

TERR094:
"Field recording is not as much a musical genre as it is a form of participatory media. The audience of these releases are often recordists themselves. While participation is not required for an appreciation of field recording, the listener/recordist relationship is what forms the basis of whatever musical conversation may exist in the form.

Field recordings are almost universally presented without the presence of the recordist. During the recording process recordists control for the sound of self by avoiding movement or vocalization, or even leaving equipment deployed unattended. During production, recordings are almost always edited to remove the recordist if they appear at the beginning or ending of a recording. The pull of this aesthetic is very strong and is represented across a spectrum of the sub-genres of field recording. Journalism and documentaries are notable exceptions.

The strength of this tendency to edit out the recordist is likely influenced by the ethos or intent of the project. In "nature sound recording" for example, the objective is often to attempt to preserve a representation of an environment or situation that...  more
credits
released August 3, 2016

All photography and sound mixing by David Michael 2009 - 2016.
Quote from Klas Strandberg.

Graphic design by Luke Lund.

Voices from Francisco López (2), Slavek Kwi (2, 6, 9, 10), Paul Dickinson (3), Rob Danielson (3), Rich Peet (3, 4), Jimmy King (5), Lang Elliott (7), John Cancalosi (7), participants of the 2013 Sonic Mmabolea residency (8), Stijn Demeulenaere (9).

Microphones are not Ears

The first in a series of recordings taken of Brood X in the Patapsco Valley near Baltimore Maryland. In this section, the microphones face a tree being used by the brood to get to the treetops. The beating of wings can be heard as well as some close up calls. The camera shutter is also audible above the din.

What I like so much about this recording is the layers of drone produced by the cicadas is given a bit of depth through wingbeats, a few footsteps, and the clicking of the camera's shutter.

Photographer

Morning on Midway

I Hear You

Surf

Evening at Jessamine Bayou

Morning at Jessamine Bayou

Morning

Midnight

Brood X: Patapsco River Valley

Forest's Edge

The Beaver Ponds

Star Valley Slate

Are the Numbers Going Up?

They Want to be Eaten

Setup Camp and Get Scared

Sipsey River Swamp

Midnight with Bird-voiced Treefrogs and Cattle

Recorded overnight in the dry river bed at Umzumbi in Mmabolela, South Africa as part of Sonic Mmabolela. This excerpt taken from the original 12 hour recording.

Vocalists include baboons, bats, jackals, frogs, crickets, and as yet unidentified birds.

The MP3 encoding on SoundCloud removes much of the details of the bats.

https://davidmichael.bandcamp.com/album/umzumbi-durational-field-recording-and-player-10-hours-overnight-in-limpopo-south-africa

Listen to more

Baboons, Bats, Jackals: From "Umzumbi" durational field recording, 12 hours in Limpopo, South Africa

A mix of field recordings, ambient, acousmatic and a little inbetween. Mixed live and broadcast on Deep Space Radio during the Future Current sessions hosted by Rontronic!

Playlist:

1. Breath and Drone by David Michael
2. Weddell Space by Douglas Quin 
3. Drowning Cricket Quartet by Lexaunculpt
4. Sora Dawn by Lang Elliot
5. Palimpsestes by Robert Normandeau
6. Look How Hard I've Tried by Barker
7. Nuits de Guyane by Marc Namblard
8. The Bridge to Botswana IV by David Michael
9. MM Konstruktim by Slavek Kwi
10. Lost in the Veld by Michael Clemow
11. Slávek's Dry Creek by David Michael
12. Agony by Ilhan Mimaroglu
13. Beneath The Forest Floor by Hildegard Westerkamp
14. River Dolphins Hunting Panicking Fish (Boto & Tucuxi) by David Michael
15. Point Of Gibraltar by Tom Lawrence
16. The Emergent Pond by David Dunn
17. Motmots in the Drip by Lang Elliott & Ted Mack
18. Umgebung by Markus Guentner
19. Photographer by David Michael
20. They Want To Be Eaten by David Michael
21. Drift To The Centre by Aquarius
22. Pied Butcherbirds of Spirey Creek by David Lumsdane

Guest DJ: David Michael

Future Current - Deep Space Radio - Guest Mix

HKSINTL

China

A.I.

Dreemz

Spring

Intimacy

The Excluded Middle

Into Matter

Manifest Destiny

Drone

Sonya

Tinkling Frogs (Excerpt from A Deep Forest Creek)

Disc 2, Track 6. Taken from the "Mmabolela" double CD produced with Slavek Kwi and published by Tentacles of Perception Recordings and Gruenrekorder. Gruen 144.

Recorded during Francisco Lopez's and James Webb's Sonic Mmabolela Residency and Workshop in Mmabolela, South Africa. http://www.franciscolopez.net/field.html

Available direct from Bandcamp at
https://davidmichael.bandcamp.com/album/mmabolela

Available soon from Gruenrekorder


The Bridge To Botswana IV: from the 2xCD "Mmabolela" on Gruenrekorder, available at Bandcamp

http://naturerecordists.com/recordings/202

El Yunque at 5:45 am with owl

Shindagin Hollow, Dawn Chorus

Recorded in the Danielson Amphitheater, La Farge, WI, US on May 20th 2013  

An Introduction To Topology

Jesuit Of Orchards

Barred Owl

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab053.htm

El Yunque
DAVID MICHAEL
IHab053

When I made this recording I was deeply disappointed at the results. At a campsite on the edge of the El Yunque national forest in Puerto Rico, I had held vigil all night with my recorder, attempting to capture the long sweep of the nighttime choruses of coqui.

Along with the sounds of frogs and insects, the neighborhood surrounding my campsite drifted up the mountainside and into my microphones. Cars navigated the winding roads, people cheered a boxing match, and dogs barked at the night. At daybreak, a chorus of roosters. Occasionally I fell asleep, only to wake myself up with a snore.

For the nature recording I had expected to make, it was a total travesty. These were not the sounds of the rainforest. For the nature recording that I hope to make today, I am not sure I could have planned it any better. These are the sounds of the rainforest.

This recording then is about preconceptions.

COPYLEFT:

artwork/cover design:
©2012 Chris Suspect
©2012 David Vélez
music:
©2012 David Michael
©2012 Impulsive Habitat

El Yunque

Talladega Night

Fishing

Whip-poor-will and Snipe

April 09 2020. 6 AM EST.
A dawn chorus at the edge of a meadow in Westchester County NY. In recent years this area is typically too noisy for recording. After nearly a month of lockdown, there is still relatively little air traffic. 

White-throated Sparrows lead a crush of songbirds. A Mallard joins. The quiet rush of the Pocantico River. A distant horn from the Metro North.

41°06'10.5"N 73°51'11.0"W

Howler monkeys caught by a deployed long-term recording rig at a deep forest creek. 

Mamori Art Lab, November 2009. 
Lago Mamori, Amazonas, Brasil.

Recorded using Audio Technical AT4022 microphones in a binaural wooden baffle.



Howler monkeys at a deep forest creek

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