Episode 1 of the podcast visits the reef system of Lady Bay, exploring its underwater marine environment.

http://tristanlouthrobins.com/fleurieu_soundmap/

The FKISM Podcast - Episode 1: Lady Bay Reef

Three Butcher Birds throw melodies back and forth on a windy morning between storms. An Eastern Koel joins in midway along with the rest of the dawn chorus and frogs can be heard in the waterway nearby.
These field recordings are part of my time in the role of 'The Keeper'. The observer, the explorer, the maker. The Keeper is a live public art project featuring artists from Coolum Beach, Australia. Find out more at: www.keeperproject.com.au

Butcher Birds and Eastern Koel

The South Asian river dolphin or, more commonly known as the Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is an extremely elusive animal. Because they live in sediment-rich Himalayan rivers like the Ganges, they have limited sense of sight and therefore, rely almost exclusively on sound for navigation, foraging and communication.

Acoustic methods are therefore, one of the best ways to make sense of their ecology. It is however, very hard for us to hear their high frequency echolocation clicks but with a little adjustment, we can hear and appreciate an incredibly rare and vocal animal.

Enjoy!

Sounds of the Ganges: The Ganges river dolphin

The Ganges floodplain is truly a place of contradictions. It is known to have the highest density of people in the world, yet, one can still find enigmatic animals like the Gharial, Ganges river dolphin and the smolth-coated otters. 
The region is also infamous for loud and deafening sounds produced by honking vehicles and explosive music, whereas the same place can calm you down with its soothing and tranquil ambient sound and in some cases, absolute silence.

This soundtrack attempts to capture this truly odd place. The river, its dwindling wildlife and its people are inseparable in most ways. One needs to go through the incessant noise in the cities around the river to actually experience the calm that follows.

Put your headphones on as you travel from the heart of a noisy city and into the soul of the Ganges river.

Sounds of the Ganges

Riverine Symphonies: Sounds from the Ganges

3 minute audio sample from the 190 minute nature soundscape recording; “Adirondack Lake”. Listen to the complete recording:
http://www.listeningearth.com/play/album/99AdirondackLake.php

The still waters of a small lake in the Adirondack mountains of northeastern United States reflect the first glimmers of the approaching dawn. The treeline and low hills beyond stand out against the paling sky.

In the dark, Bullfrogs and Peepers have been calling almost continually throughout the night. Now this amphibian chorus subsides as the light grows. As we listen from the lake edge, the air begins to shimmer with the delicate sounds of passerine birdsong. It emanates from nearby forest and drifts across from the far shores - White-throated Sparrows, Warblers, Olive-sided Flycatcher and Wrens. Hermit Thrushes give querulous calls, between bouts of sublime song. A coyote calls distantly, and later deer barks echo across the lake.

This is landscape recording - you can hear the scale of the place, as birdsong drifts over the lake and echoes off the treeline. This album takes us into a still morning of listening, as sunlight slants through drifts of steam rising from the waters.

Listening Earth Album Sample

Adirondack Lake: Album Sample

Listening to Country: Exploring the value of acoustic ecology with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison.

The aim of ‘Listening to Country’ is to explore the value of acoustic ecology in promoting cultural connection, maintenance and wellbeing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison. In early 2019, an interdisciplinary team of researchers worked with women in Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre (BWCC) to produce a 1-hour immersive audio work based on field recordings of natural environments (of country) for the purpose of stress relief and relaxation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are overrepresented in Australian prisons. The majority are mothers, experiencing the trauma associated with separation from family, community and country. 

‘Listening to Country’ represents an innovative and creative approach to promoting cultural maintenance and wellbeing among mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties and grandmothers in prison. The research use principles and processes from acoustic ecology, Indigenous storywork, dadirri (deep active listening), and arts-led inquiry to explore notions of cultural connection and maintenance for the participants, and the effects of the project on their wellbeing.

This project responds to a direct request from a group of Aboriginal women at BWCC to create a culturally appropriate sound recording for the purpose of reducing stress and connecting to natural environments and to country. It has been built on a strong foundation of previous creative engagement and consultation with women incarcerated in Queensland. The project team consists of two Aboriginal and two non-Aboriginal researchers working in collaboration. Dr Vicki Saunders (Gunggari) is an emerging scholar who works using arts-led and poetic enquiry in the field of child protection and family wellbeing. Dr Bianca Beetson (Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi) is a visual artist and curator, and Director of the Contemporary Indigenous Art Program at Griffith University. Dr Sarah Woodland has been developing creative arts-based approaches to wellbeing in Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre (BWCC) for the past seven years, recently finding radio drama, audio recording and soundscape to be highly effective in engaging the women. Dr Leah Barclay is a sound artist whose work investigates the value of acoustic ecology as a socially engaged, accessible, interdisciplinary field that can inspire communities across the world to listen to the environment. This team is supported by an advisory group that includes members of the Brisbane Council of Elders, Dr Claire Walker, (Director of the Murri Dhagun cultural unit of Queensland Corrective Services) and criminology expert Professor Andrew Day from James Cook University.

The pilot project in BWCC has enabled the researchers to develop and hone this approach to wellbeing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison. It is anticipated that the ‘Listening to Country’ model might be transferable into a number of different wellbeing contexts, including with at-risk youth, Elders/seniors in care or off-country, women transitioning from prison to the community and more. The pilot will inform further development of the approach with additional groups in the community, with capacity development and knowledge translation activities occurring in Mitchell, Sunshine Coast and Cherbourg, Queensland to explore these possibilities in 2019.

This soundscape is a short excerpt from the 1-hr immersive audio work produced with the women during the pilot phase in prison in early 2019.

Visit the website for further details: www.listeningtocountry.com

Listening to Country (soundscape excerpt)

first light - recorded as a part of the REVIEL 2020 Event for 'International Dawn Chorus Day': streams.soundtent.org/2020/streams/utc-8_mt-shasta

Reveil is a collective production by streamers at listening points around the planet. Starting on the morning of Saturday 2 May in South London near the Greenwich Meridian, the broadcast will pick up feeds one by one, tracking the sunrise west from microphone to microphone, following the wave of intensified sound that loops the earth every 24 hours at first light.

In 2020 Reveil featurea new streams from places where humans and non humans meet, in soundscapes often radically altered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these these streams come from from homes and gardens as people make connections between the the domestic spaces where they find themselves.

Themes of connection and collective practices addressing changes in public space inform the program of extended radio projects that accompanies the Reveil broadacast. Supported by Arts Council England originally as a series of site specific commissions, these have become virtual projects that respond directly or oblquely to the current situation. They help to recollect kinds of sociability that have been lost and point to others on the way. This is imagined sonically as an acoustic commons in the making.

David Blink - Pantheon Steel Halo: Onoleo & singing bowls
Tristan Behm - Guitar & Singing Bowls
Sisson Meadow Wildlife - Soundscape
Rob Mackay - Flute (recorded in real-time from Leeds, UK)
Recorded live and streamed on 5/2/2020 in Sisson Meadow, Mt Shasta, CA

https://followingtheflightofthemonarchs.com

first light - REVIEL 2020

Revisiting some under-explored experiments in "self-directed" sonic systems from Design After Nature project in 2008.  An experiment in maximal minimal generative systems (most variety, from simplest system).

What if sound determined the conditions of it's unfolding? 

In this example a tap dripping controls its own playback.

Pseudocode: 

Play sample
Listen for onsets
If above threshold (probabilistically) 
- change direction and speed (as an inverse function of the frequency of strongest partial -- to create a simple homeostasis) 
- resynthesise N partials according to the original energy distribution at the point of onset detection.

This simple routine draws out and explores the latent rhythmic and spectral content of everyday sounds. Endlessly. 

Best listened late at night on headphones.

It has a of life of it's own that I find quite pleasing. But I have been living on my own for nearly 3 months now : ) 

Implemented in the excellent beads for processing by Ollie Bown
http://www.beadsproject.net/

---

Sprid 2020

Listen to an ecoacoustic story walk, designed to be heard as you imagine walking (or actually walk) along the foreshore in Geelong. The sound walk starts at Steam Packet Gardens and navigates Cunningham Pier and back, ending down Alexander Thompson Pier in front of the carousel. 
Listen to gain some fresh perspectives on Geelong, particularly from a watery point of view.
This is a half hour walk. If you do walk and listen on your phone- the Geelong foreshore is very accessible for all abilities. Be aware that you may be passed by a miniature tourist train on your amble.

Picture: State Library Queensland. Lightening on fire.

Narrators: Jennifer Vuletic N’arweet Carolyn Briggs
Sound mix: Steve Stelios Adam
Sound recordings: Natalie Davey, Andrew Skeoch
Borrowed Landscape compositions: Steve Stelios Adam with Anna Liebzeit Written by Natalie Davey
Producers: Natalie Davey
                   Kate Daddo

Pelican Time Machine - Sounding The Bay

這幾個禮拜因為大潭藻礁的公投聯署，各方人士吵來吵去，但是除了網路筆戰，互相爭執之外，大家有聆聽過大潭藻礁水下的聲音嗎?
這個聲音檔，就是在大潭G2位置收錄的水下聲音，裡面的每一個"啪"聲，都是棲息在藻礁生態系中的動物發出來的，聽到這不知道如何計算的啪聲，大概也可以想像的到水下有多少發聲的動物。一般來說，我們只會在珊瑚礁生態系聽到這麼吵雜的寬頻啪聲，因為珊瑚礁有很多槍蝦，槍蝦就是這種寬頻啪聲的主要聲源。
在我還沒聽過桃園藻礁的水下聲音時，我也曾經認為那不就跟台灣西岸其他的海域生態差不多，受到混濁海水高度影響，應該很難說是個生物多樣性熱點吧。但經過這幾年，在中研院生多中心、東海大學、成功大學、特有生物研究中心的眾多前輩努力之下，發現到桃園藻礁生態系真的是非常的特殊，是全世界在淺灘上最大的一個藻礁生態系統，其育幼地的功能不只支撐著竹圍漁港與永安漁業等近海漁業，特殊的生態環境也造就了7600年的藻礁景觀。
更難想像的是，我過去在執行白海豚生態調查時，一直不相信白海豚會到桃園海域活動，但是透過漁民的通報以及陳昭倫老師的陸上觀察，確實證明白海豚的活動範圍延伸到桃園海域。後來，我們和民間單位合作，在桃園藻礁外海收集水下錄音時，也聽到鯨豚運用回聲定位聲音覓食、導航，顯示這個地方豐富的生態功能。
中油第三天然氣接收站，不只是其開發範圍可能會直接破壞藻礁，因為港口而必須興建的堤坊、棧橋，也可能會導致當地藻礁生態受到淤沙或海岸線侵蝕而影響。其實，在開發與營運過程，因為船隻航運、機具運轉而產生的高強度、或是持續性水下噪音，也都可能會衝擊藻礁生態系中許多魚類、無脊椎動物的生理與行為。雖然沒有人曾經做過水下噪音對藻礁生態系的衝擊，但從珊瑚礁和牡蠣礁的過去研究成果來看，珊瑚和牡蠣幼生會透過聆聽水下聲音來尋找適合棲息的環境，珊瑚礁魚類也會被健康的珊瑚礁聲音而吸引。
從珊瑚礁和牡蠣礁的例子來看，健康的生態系有良好的聲音景觀，海洋動物在播遷過程中，透過聆聽聲音訊息便能提高播遷之成功率，這是一種基於水下聲音的感知而達到生態恢復的過程。但如果藻礁附近有大量的水下噪音，改變了當地的聲景，會不會就算環境品質還在，但仍然間接降低的生態恢復力?
在聯署的最後階段，希望大家都可以從不同政黨的政治立場先退開，拿起耳機，好好地聆聽一下這一段大潭藻礁的水下聲音。對你來說，大潭藻礁在傳遞甚麼訊息? 你，又要如何回應?

大潭藻礁水下聲景 Underwater soundscape of Datan algal reef

Leah Barclay is a sound artist, designer and researcher who works at the intersection of art, science and technology. Leah's research and creative work over the last decade has investigated innovative approaches to recording and disseminating the soundscapes of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to inform conservation, scientific research and public engagement. Her work explores ways we can use creativity, new technologies and emerging science to reconnect communities to the environment and inspire climate action.

Leah has been the recipient of numerous awards and her work has been commissioned, performed and exhibited to wide acclaim internationally by organisations including the Smithsonian Museum, UNESCO, Ear to the Earth, Streaming Museum, Al Gore’s Climate Reality and the IUCN. Leah’s augmented reality sound installations have been presented across the world from Times Square in New York City to the Eiffel Tower in Paris for COP21.

Leah leads several research projects including Biosphere Soundscapes and River Listening that focus on advancing the field of ecoacoustics. The design of these interdisciplinary projects are responsive to the needs of collaborating communities and involve the development of new technologies including remote sensing devices for the rainforest canopy and hydrophone recording arrays in aquatic ecosystems.

Leah is a lecturer and researcher at USC Sunshine Coast, Australia.

Listening to Country (soundscape excerpt)

Leah Barclay

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