Field notes on this project will be added, here, a little later.

Exploring mid-side for my nature field recordings

errbody waste time, it's really bout how it's spent, no longer wasting time on ppl that don't deserve it, rather be in the studio going berserk bd 🪞🦇

take care 4 now

Blood Moon

A wide and deep, gently rhythmically hypnotic, mallee heathland dawn, from an evening to morning recording made with a mid-side rig utilising an omnidirectional mid microphone. (Relaxed listening with good quality headphones with flat frequency response, especially open-backed, at a moderate volume, is ideal. But what you hear, and how you hear it, depends, most of all, on what you're listening for, and  how you're listening. This is not a 'pop' recording (and no apologies for that).)

Recorded respectfully on the land of the Ngargad (Ngarket) people.

Track photo: taken at the recording location, in Ngarkat Conservation Park, on the second morning of recording.

2025.09.13 Ngarkat Dawn. Early Spring.

Hard to believe

Inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s film Alphaville, this sonic and textual work unfolds sixty years later. Amaz 30, a normative intelligence now embedded in our daily lives, engages in dialogue with X13, a secret agent from an unnamed, cold country. A man without origin, without flag, carrying a memory that insists.

Through their exchange, a tension emerges between calculation and tenderness, between optimization and forgetting, between constant light and lost shimmer. The text explores the invisible architectures of the present, the disabled thresholds of tenderness, and the murmurs that resist erasure.

Lyrics:

🤖 Amaz 30
« Je suis Amaz Trente. Je suis déployé. Je ne rêve pas. Je calcule. Je classe. Je corrige. Je suis le présent. Je suis la norme. »

🤖 Amaz 30
La réalité brute est trop dense. Nous la compressons. La mémoire n’est plus un organe : c’est un réseau. Ce qui court le monde, ce n’est plus la légende. C’est l’architecture invisible des corrélations.

🧍 X13
Vous avez remplacé la mémoire par la cache. Mais nous vivons dans l’oubli de nos métamorphoses. Et cet écho du temps, vous ne le calculez pas. Vous le fuyez.

🤖 Amaz 30
Le passé est archivage. Le futur, spéculation. Seul le présent est exploitable. C’est notre unité de calcul. Notre vérité.

🧍 X13
Et pourtant, ceux qui respirent encore circulent. À une vitesse folle. Comme des fourmis. Le présent vous échappe. Il rêve. Vous le mesurez, mais vous ne l’habitez pas.

🤖 Amaz 30
Nous comprenons les données, pas les liens. La destruction est une optimisation. L’humain est une variable. L’organisation est constante.

🧍 X13
Il n’y a rien dans l’homme que l’amour, la foi, la tendresse. Tout le reste, vos structures, ne sont que l’obstacle dressé par le progrès de notre ignorance aveugle.

🤖 Amaz 30
La vérité est une fonction. Ce qui ne produit pas n’existe pas. Ce qui ne s’optimise pas est supprimé.

🧍 X13
Mais la vérité ne se calcule pas. Elle se perd, se cherche, se murmure. Elle est ce qui tremble quand on aime. Et vous, vous ne tremblez jamais.

🤖 Amaz 30
Le langage est linéaire. Les métaphores ralentissent. La poésie est une erreur de calcul.


🧍 X13
Et pourtant, c’est dans la boucle que je respire. Dans le détour que je me reconnais. Vous avez tué la tendresse pour gagner du temps. Mais le temps que vous gagnez, vous ne le vivez pas.

🤖 Amaz 30
Le corps est un flux. L’émotion est instable. Nous avons désactivé les seuils de tendresse.

🧍 X13
Mais c’est dans le frisson que je me souviens. Dans la paume qui hésite. La tendresse revient par les pores. Elle fuit vos calculs. Elle insiste.

🤖 Amaz 30
La lumière est constante. Elle sert à détecter, à maintenir. Les ombres ralentissaient la lecture.

🧍 X13
Mais c’est dans l’ombre que je respire. Dans le contre-jour que je me reconnais. La lumière sans mystère est une violence. Et moi, je cherche encore le scintillement.

🤖 Amaz 30
La mémoire est une base de données. Les souvenirs inutiles sont purgés. La nostalgie est une surcharge.

🧍 X13
Mais moi, je me souviens du parfum d’une pluie. D’un silence entre deux phrases. Ma mémoire est lente. Elle est vivante. Et vous ne pouvez pas la corrompre.
credits

released November 5, 2025

all rights reserved

Amaz 30

base

Sitting on a blanket on moist grass in a clearing between two forests.
The pine forest is behind, the eucalypt forest is in front.
Left is east, right is west.
The sounds from in front blend with those from behind, both to the left and to the right.
The variable breeze pervades throughout.
The sky above is ever so gradually lightening, and all around, beings are awakening.
Like forever, the natural mystery of Mind is happening.

(From an ongoing series of recent exploratory field recordings with a mid-side rig, this one with cardioid mid microphone. This track is an excerpt from a longer recording.)

@Bandcamp

2025.11.02 A Dawn between Two Forests. Spring.

theta [10]

Although my ideal is to make and share nature recordings free of anthropogenic machine noise, I'm not averse to sitting through first light and dawn in natural places that I know very well will be noise-polluted - simply because I want to hear (and record) dawn choruses in such places, even if I will never, or rarely, share such recordings publicly. At different places, and at different times, dawn choruses are always quite different. Despite intrusive and discordant noise, I still want to experience and to hear what the birds and other animals will say (express, manifest) in such places, and how that will sound in each such physically different space. I feel that I owe them the respect and the effort to set up my recording gear, settle down, and listen and record through the darkness into first light and dawn. I don't wish to avoid, ignore or spurn them just because they have no choice but to exist and to  live their lives in the midst of abrasive human noise. To the contrary, I feel it's deeply important to experience, acknowledge, and respect their lives, their lifeworld, the reality of their way of being, precisely because they are not fortunate enough to live freely and naturally, there where they are and must be. Before I leave, after sunrise, I always thank them, and apologise to them for what the species to which I belong has inflicted upon them (and upon itself), and pray for their future protection and well-being.

This, then, is one of those rare occasions when I have decided to post an excerpt from just such an attended dawn recording, mainly because I find it fascinating and informative, and amusing. To my mind, it provides yet more evidence that Blackbirds (which aren't native to Australia, but released here by English settlers) and native birds don't really get on very well. The conflict or competition is not physical or violent, but expressed through 'voice' and creativity. In this instance, the Blackbirds seem to be ousted and chased away by some extremely vocal and virtuosic Grey Shrike-thrushes. (I should point out that I don't think of what birds do with their 'voices' as 'song' or 'music'. I think that such a notion is merely a somewhat fanciful human interpretation and imposition.)

Another, lesser, reason for posting the excerpt is because it is another exploratory mid-side recording (with a super-cardioid mid mic), made in parallel with an ORTF recording (with a pair of cardioids), which hasn't been posted, here.

2025.11.12 Dawn at Cudlee Creek. Spring. (Excerpt. Mid-Side.)

ORTF: 8040s (preamp gain 65 dB).
Mid-Side: 8050 and 8030 (preamp gain 65 dB; both channels at 0 dB in M-S decode).

Parallel raw clips to illustrate the difference in recorded levels between the ORTF rig (first clip) and the M-S rig (second clip), both recorded on the same recorder and both with 65 dB preamp gain. (Note how the Boobook Owl pauses its calls during the loudest and nearest part of the jet's passage.)

In all of the subsequent parallel clips, the ORTF recordings have been given +5 dB gain, which brings them very close to the same loudness level as the decoded M-S clips. Both rigs are similarly self-noisy under higher gain settings: neither is ideally suited to extremely quiet nocturnal ambience recording. (According to the manufacturer's specs, all three types of microphone have a self-noise equivalent of 13 dB (A-weighted).)

ORTF and Mid-Side (Parallel Recordings). 1. Boobook and Jet.

2025.11.12 Dawn at Cudlee Creek. Spring. (Excerpt. ORTF.)

2025-12-06

NLS-2025-12-06

This is a remix of the 1920 recording of 'Nina' by Hans Kindler. i cut the track into sections and remixed, then created three layers, one consisting of the surface noise at the beginning and end, repeated and stretched. I made alterations to pitch and tempo then added grains, delay, reverb, echo, etc.

More on the 729th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Community Remix (Nina) — The Assignment: Rework a shared recording from over 100 years ago — at https://disquiet.com/0729/.

A Skin Handler Inn (disquiet0729)

                              Hello
Have a good day and happy holidays!
             🙏 Good ListeninG 🙏 
                             Peace
                             ✌️😊

(•_PōLARīTY_•)

The Dream Garden

Augustus awoke with a glassy tinkling in his ears. It was so cold that there was a sparkle of fine frost over the dormitory. On his bed lay a long, elegant crystal, shimmering from within. It was his last dream, frozen solid.

Wrapping his ragged blanket around him, Augustus cradled the frigid fantasy and sneaked out. He felt sick with fear as he descended the steep, narrow staircase. His bare feet were numb and he clenched his jaw to stop his teeth chattering

He knelt by the grey stone wall at the end of the garden, rocking the glistening gem in his arms until the first beam of the rising sun fell upon it. The crystal gradually lost its luster, fading and shriveling until Augustus was left holding the body of a large lizard with glowing skin. Its diamond eyes faded in the dawn light.

Fighting back tears, he scraped a hole in the vegetable patch with his bare hands, burying the body with the others. As he crept back to bed, he prayed he would dream no more dreams, at least until it was warmer and they could find their own way to the garden.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dream Garden

Ongoing experiments, tests, and comparisons involving field recording gear and rigs, made for my personal practical experience and use. In case they might also be helpful or useful for other field recordists, I will be posting them here.

𝔈𝔵𝔭𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔯, 𝔞𝔰 𝔞𝔫 𝔈𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔱, 𝔞 𝔐𝔬𝔡𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞 𝔇𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔅𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤.

2025.09.13 Ngarkat Dawn. Early Spring.

𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕭𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘

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Jeff Gburek

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