Elephant seals. Palmer Station, Antarctica.

Elephant Seal

Recording of a white-bearded manakin lek in Caratinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Males display for passing females with loud percussive, popping sounds accompanied by vocalisations. 

Photo downloaded from:
https://a4.pbase.com/o10/86/959086/1/126046072.Y8pxanbs.WhitebeardedManakinbp.jpg

White - Bearded Manakin

Recording of the bells of the Seville Cathedral.

Sevilla Cathedral Bells

Recording of wren and hornero, Vilcabamba, Ecuador.

Wren & Hornero

Blue-eyed shags feeding young. Cormorant Island, Antarctica.

Blue-eyed Shags

Waterscape for Andrea Pagnes is conceived as part of his planned experiential breathing workshops. 

Several considerations informed the choice of sounds, their texture, rhythm and duration. Point of listening (POL) was also a key consideration: from intimate sounds recorded close-in, to distant ambiences and underwater perspectives. In a similar manner to photographers who may use different lenses, focal lengths and aperture settings to capture an image, I used various microphones, hydrophones and techniques to convey the "shape of water." I sought those sonic qualities that would complement the goals of the workshop. Namely, a contemplative experience focusing on biorhythms: heart rate; breathing; the potential to affect autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR); and evoking a synesthetic resonance. 

Rather than sudden transitions from one space and place to the next, the sequences have long, gradual crossfades. So, the times indicated are generally somewhere across the middle of a transition.

00:00 – 13:30. The soundscape begins with the gentle flow of a small feeder creek into the Zweifalter Aach, a river near the Wimsener Cave in southern Germany. The perspective shifts gradually to a broader stretch of the river, and then to more active rapids.

13:30 – 23:00. From Germany, we move to several Pacific Ocean shore perspectives from northern California in the US. These include recordings of lapping waves along a sandy beach in Tomales Bay to the thunderous rhythm of ocean rollers after a storm at Point Reyes. The soundscape builds in intensity and depth from a distant POL.

23:00 – 38:00. The following sequence and the next were both recorded on the south coast of Madeira, near Funchal. We first travel into the Túnel des Poças do Gomes, where waves from the Atlantic Ocean break inside a large, reverberant cave. Some waves would send cascades of water to the ceiling at 10 metres in height or more. Just beyond the tunnel, the Praia Formosa opens up with its expanse of black volcanic rock. The recording was made as the tide ebbed, with waves breaking ashore and pulling at rounded, worn rocks. 

38:00 – 01:08:00. The coastal soundscape gives way to an underwater hydrophone array recording of Weddell seals beneath fast ice by Big Razorback Island in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The vocalisations of these remarkable creatures are powerful and can travel great distances underwater. Furthermore, there is no surface noise from waves and their sounds reverberate off the two-metre thick ice "ceiling" and steep slopes of the island; it is not readily apparent where we are. This is the only recording that features the sounds of life. 

01:08:00 – 01:15:00. This passage keeps with the Antarctic theme as we return to the surface and the sounds of brash ice in the waters off Palmer Station, on Anvers Island. Brash is made up of a floating carpet of smaller pieces of ice. The sounds of wave motion is punctuated by the cracking and clinking of ice. 

01:15:00 – 01:22:30. From the more muted sounds of brash ice we move to a stretch of coastline between Playa Las Gaviotas and Playa Balandra, north of La Paz, Mexico in the Sea of Cortez. The recording was made at slack tide with the lapping of small waves breaking against rocks and into small pools of water.

01:22:30 – End. Andrea had said that he felt ending the soundscape with rain might be an appropriate way to wrap up. I found something similar in terms of texture: the polyrhythmic, percussive patter of dripping recorded at an ice cave near Old Palmer Station in Antarctica. The reverberation seemed to add to the meditative quality he was seeking.

01:28:00 – End. The ice cave sounds are overlaid with a recording of gentle waves lapping beneath a floating dock on Seventh Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State, USA. The waves are scarcely more than a ripple on the surface and they have a singular quality, like drops.

Waterscape for Andrea Pagnes

STRATA is the fifth performance art and film hybrid by artist duo VestAndPage (Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes). It is a film of philosophical, poetic action exploring caves as proto-spaces for altered states and sites of knowledge-making and human becoming. Some of the oldest known examples of human figurative artworks have been found within the caves of the Swabian Jura in Germany. These are the products of the Ice Age, dating back 33,000 to 43,000 years. VestAndPage convened an interdisciplinary gathering of over 20 artists and scientists to engage with these unique spaces and places and challenge central ontological and social issues. 

From December 12 to 15, 2024, as part of IX Venice International Performance Art Week “Portals and Constellations”, STRATA was reimagined as a video and sound installation in the European Cultural Centre (ECC) - Palazzo Mora. 

The soundscape for the exhibition by Douglas Quin is conceived as a complement to the film. Rather than recreate the film's soundtrack, the installation focused on conveying some of the experience of the caves themselves with audio gathered 'in situ' from performances to soundscapes. The approach to the audio for the gallery installation involved drawing from the many hours of location recordings, deconstructing and recomposing the layers and sonic strata to intimate the resonances of Deep Time and collective consciousness. 

Executive Producers: VestAndPage (Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes)
Producer: Douglas Quin

Featuring music and soundings by Aldo Aliprandi (self-made, 'trichord' instrument), Andreas Bauer Kanabas (voice) and Stephan Knies (violin), Aisha Ryannon Pagnes (voice), Ralf Peters (voice), Susanne Weins (voice), as well as cave environments and processed soundscapes. Photo © Fenia Kotsopoulou.

For more information about the project, please visit:

www.stratafilm.de
https://veniceperformanceart.org/the-art-week/portals-and-constellations-2024

STRATA Soundscape

Sounds of the Southern Hemisphere is dedicated to the memory of Richard Lerman who passed away on June 20, 2025. I met Richard when I was a graduate student at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1981. He was my mentor, dear friend and colleague of more than 40 years. The live recording is from a concert we performed at Phill Niblock's Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York City on December 13, 1990. The work features soundscape recordings Richard and I had made across lands of the southern hemisphere––both natural and human built environments––wildlife and musics, in addition to samplers, MIDI guitar, and homemade electroacoustic instruments. In addition to our instruments of choice, we fed each other channels of audio that the other processed: a conversation in soundings.

Photo of Richard Lerman recording in the field at the University of Helsinki's Biological Research Station at Kilpisjarvi. Courtesy of Mona Higuchi.

Sounds of the Southern Hemisphere

Written by: Christine McVie
Original recording found on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album (1979)

Personnel
Sinny: synths and percussion
Adam Becker: electric guitar
Luke Giunta: bass guitar
Jade Miori: vocals

Artwork taken by Fab5669 at the Russell Page garden of the Castle of Chenonceau

Never Make Me Cry (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Titre : KM41 Amazon
Lieu : Camp KM41, Amazonas, Brésil
Date d’enregistrement : 7 février 1990
Saison : été
Conditions climatiques : partiellement nuageux

« Dans les forêts tropicales humides, il faut être particulièrement attentif aux signaux captés par chacun de nos sens : la vue, l’odorat, le toucher et l’ouïe. J’en ai fait l’expérience une nuit : j’étais à la recherche d’un emplacement pour enregistrer lorsque j’ai perçu le marquage olfactif d’un jaguar qui suivait ma piste, bien dissimulé et parfaitement silencieux. À peine avais-je installé mon micro dans l’obscurité qu’il s’est approché de l’appareil et a commencé à le flairer, à feuler et à gronder. »
Bernie Krause

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Title : KM41 Amazon
Place: Camp KM41, Amazonas, Brazil
Date of recording: February 7, 1990
Season: summer
Weather: partly cloudy

“In tropical rainforests, you must be especially mindful of the information every one of your senses receives: sight, smell, touch, and sound. I discovered this one night while looking for a location to record, when I picked up the marking scent of a jaguar as it followed me down a trail, keeping itself well hidden and unheard. No sooner had I set up my microphone in the dark when it stepped up to the instrument and began to sniff, chuff, and growl.”
Bernie Krause


SQHAP Audio Journal (Green Frogs In Stereo Excerpt, 7/18/2017)

Edward Ruchalski

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