Nightscape – Athena Noctua is based on a field recording taken on Corfu which features the eponymous owl. It fits into a pattern of works I've made which attempt to evoke a place which I have visited. In using an untreated field recording, this is perhaps the most blatantly anecdotal in content of these pieces. But in manipulating the sound I try to blur, blend and move between the real and imagined, the raw and the cooked.

Postscript to original note: the species in question may actually be the Scops Owl. Too late now. 

Nightscape - Athena Noctua

Four Am was a hastily typed project filename that became the acutal title, originally it referred the four A minor chords
used to construct the piece, but served a cute double meaning which seemed to fit as the piece took on a dark late night feeling. 

I may be reasoning retrospectively, but the piece seems to stem from spending lot of time doing abstract sound sculpting 
and was craving some unfashionable tonality. The piece is slow moving, glacial even, exploring something I've sometimes called "music as gradual processing" (apologies to S. Reich) with the abstracted, processed elements gradually becoming more prominent in a wedge shaped form. 


Ian Baxter Four AM

First played at Sound Junction in Sheffield.

Memories of the Waves at Big Sur

Originally released 2006 on Octoberman recordings in a limited edition with handmade japanese paper sleeve. Long since sold out....

229, 294, 306, 337

I recorded the dawn chorus this summer (sitting bleary eyed worrying about the noise from the motorway and battery life). This is the sound that I woke up to for roughly 20 summers growing up in the (sort of) countryside....apologies for the rough edit, this is straight off the memory card.

Dawn Chorus - 14/6/2010 3:13am - Frodsham Cheshire, My Old Bedroom

Takes down will my heart

The Singing Wires of Point Reyes

I'm a sound artist currently based in Sheffield UK where I'm studying for a PhD. My primary interest is in the creation of slowly evolving soundscapes. This takes in aspects of traditional electro-acoustic composition and an interest in getting my hands dirty with electronics and computer programming. I often seek to compose in a way where the outcome is not necessarily foreseen (which is one definition of experimental music). This approach has seen me derive pieces from weather patterns and accounting statements. I've presented my works through traditional methods (releases on CD and concerts) as well as in an installation context in galleries.

ianbaxter

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