Field Recordings (non Fleurieu Sound Map) - 2010 to present

From the second floor of Hababusch hostel (Geleitstrasse 4, Weimar, Germany)  Recorded on an Sony MD MZ-NH700 with a Sony stereo condenser microphone.  Lots of passing conversations, cars idling, bicycles and the chiming of distant bells.  The hostel is in one of the areas of Weimar where the sound field is immediate and dense with human activity and reverberations.

Sounds from a window in Weimar, Germany - 1pm; 20 September 2008

Luxmore Hut is located about 15km south-west from Te Anau on the South Island of New Zealand.  It is the first hut along the Kepler Track (a 60km tramping track circuit) in the Fiordland National Park.  The hut is roughly 1400km above sea level and is the highest point of the track.  There are incredible views from the hut of the surrounding mountains and Lake Te Anau.  At the time of our arrival there had been an unseasonable late snow drop which covered the whole mountain plain in thick (deep) snow with the very likely chance of avalanches, had we decided to tramp further (we didn't.)  This recording documents the seemingly ferocious winds that surrounded the hut in the early hours of the morning.  I couldn't sleep very well - I was pretty spooked by the jolts of wind, the creaks of the hut and the occasional short whistle.  Even more disconcerting was the silence as the wind suddenly dropped for a few seconds before starting up again.  Recorded on an Edirol HD-09 hard disk recorder with mic gain and limiter activated.


Winds pass through Luxmore Hut, New Zealand - 3am; 8 October 2010

On a beautiful sunny afternoon in Te Anau, Lauren and I took a casual stroll along the banks of Lake Te Anau.  I discovered a couple of service shafts that had some attractive sounds that one could make out from a distance amongst the ambiance of lapping water, distant cars, twittering birds and chattering insects.  I recorded both of these shafts by positioning the recorder 'belly up' on each of the metal doors.  I placed my jumper over the recorder on both occasions as to isolate the sound of rattling pipes and subtle resonances coming from each of the shafts.  You'll hear distinct differences between the shafts - in terms of texture, dynamic, resonance and overall loudness. The respective recordings have been normalized and EQ'd (very slightly) in an attempt to faithfully restore these recordings to a semblance what I heard at the time.  As a result of this process there is a little noise on both of these recordings.  If only I'd had a couple of transducer mics on hand! Recorded on an Edirol HR-09 stereo HHD.

Two shafts by Lake Te Anau, New Zealand - 2pm; 11 October 2010

On our way back down from Luxmore Hut, where we had spent the previous night we arrived at Brod Bay shortly after lunchtime.   Brod Bay greets you at the base of the track after a couple of hours of downward tramping.  It was dreary and misty when we left the hut and this trend had continued by the time we arrived at Brod Bay.  This recording was made by placing the Edirol on a branch facing the Lake Te Anau (conveniently sheltered from drizzle by a branch above.)  A bit of wind buffets the stereo image occasionally and low band filtering crossed my mind but decided to remain faithful to the atmosphere instead.


Back at Brod Bay (Kepler Track), New Zealand - 2pm; 10 Oct 2010

Now this is most definitely a Kea.  This recording was made around 6am as I wandered about the Fox Glacier township on a bright sunny morning.  This fellow was perched on the roof of a cafe and it was the first time I heard the Kea's call - which is very similar to its related parrot genus, especially the sharp and complex harmonics. 

Kea, Fox Glacier Township, New Zealand - 6am; 4th October 2010

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Un-Ravel

Disquiet Junto| Un-Ravel - disquiet0691

I selected the 4th movement of the quartet, chopped it up and remixed it to a stereo track. Then, by means of many adjustments and various effects, I converted it to a modern atonal/microtonal composition.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Ravel Revamped (disquiet0691)

Ravel from the 1920s, timestretched in ableton, then converted to midi and combined, fx etc

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

un-ravel +3 mix [disquiet0691]

Following this week's Disquiet Junto project this track was created using a historic recording of the Ravel string quartet from 1928.
This is the sound of a dream, dissolved beyond recognition, but still present as the conscious cause of this unconscious music.

The audio was transformed using spectral synthesizers and effect chains to create this dreamlike rendition. No other sounds or instruments were employed.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

rêver  (Disquiet0691)

Edited, mixed & mastered on 28 Mar 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA. 

This piece uses a 1928 recording by the Capet String Quartet of Ravel’s string quartet (Col. D 15057-60).

The original source is the Internet Archive: 

https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Photography - Jim Lemanowicz, 24 Apr 2009, Massapequa & NYC, NY, USA

©2025 Jim Lemanowicz

---

This original version of “Chowder Spray” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0691: Un-Ravel. The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: disquiet.com/junto/

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The 
Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Chowder Spray (disquiet0691)

“Unraveling a revealing Ravel” takes the final twelve seconds of Ravel’s Capet string quartet in F Major (1903) as the material to apply the idea proposed in Disquiet Junto 0691: “it should make the Ravel sound like it is falling apart — that is, like it is unraveling, or un-Ravel-ing”. 
The tripartite microstructure of those final measures has been mapped into the three sections of the track: the first one starts with the clean original audio and quickly derives into a vivacious sequence of micro-editions, gating and spectral smearing; the second section transitions from energico to adagio until the chords seem to be suspended for a while, just to be submitted to different kinds of decimation, downsampling, aliasing, vacuum tube distortion, vinylic noisification, and bitcrushing; the piece closes with an exagerated ritardando, and wild filtering and cutting of excerpts that maybe expose some microfeatures of the final chord before leaving it totally unravelled. 
More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

This piece uses a 1928 recording by the Capet String Quartet of Ravel’s string quartet (Col. D 15057-60).
The original audio source can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Unraveling a revealing Ravel [disquiet0691]

I was a bit lazy with this one and also pressed for time. I basically ran the original file through a number of granular plug ins, fading and mixing them against each other and towards the end rendering the mix into an ambient wash. Hints of Ravel remain, moving in and out, here and there....

disquiet0691

Disquiet Junto Project 0691: Un-Ravel
The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart.

Step 1: Download the first movement of the Ravel string quartet at this URL: https://bit.ly/un-ravel

The original source is the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Step 2: Listen to the track closely.

Step 3: Create a new piece of music by employing the provided recording as source material. The goal for your piece is that it should make the Ravel sound like it is falling apart — that is, like it is unraveling, or un-Ravel-ing.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

unravelling [disquiet0691]

Un-Ravel [disquiet0691]

the end result is not so much a string quartet falling apart as it is a resonator-granular garble, but that's how it is sometimes

--

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/



disquiet0691 - gravel

This is a recording made with a single hydrophone immersed in a borehole's water column in Langhorne Creek, South Australia. 

The hydrophone is at about a 20 metres depth below ground level and a couple of metres within the water column.

The low resonance is from the acoustic properties of the borehole itself and the booming (with a slight flutter) can be attributed to wind shearing around and across the exposed openings of the bore. However, even when the wind drops away a resonance is still apparent which might be associated with distant vibrations from farm machinery or irrigation systems further away.

However, the most curious aspect of this recording is what appears to sound like water circulating and coursing through the porous mesh of the borehole. What is especially odd about this sound is that it dissipates over the course of about two minutes, before diminishing almost entirely. Every time the hydrophone would be lowered deeper into the borehole, this sound would materialise again and - much like earlier observations - dissipate gradually. When another set of recordings were made at the second borehole (further up the road) a similar phenomena was present.

The ecologist I was accompanied with on the field trip noted that there is fair amount of rusty sediment present in the water column, so perhaps some of this sound could be attributed to the sediment making contact with the hydrophone, but this doesn't entirely explain the phenomena, since there is a clear acoustic presence in the water column. 

Any thoughts on this (and any other) aspect of the recording are greatly welcomed.

Langhorne Creek borehole: strange sounds and deep resonances

Tristan Louth-Robins is a South Australian artist working principally in the medium of sound art and field recording. Ideas of sound and its signification are key elements in Louth-Robins' practice, traversing the space between the visual and aural his work is realised through the mediums of recordings, installation, visual art and performance. He is interested in sound and its associative implications - including its relationship to objects, technology, urban space, memory and the natural world. 


Since 2005, Louth-Robins has presented work in Australia and internationally as a solo artist, whilst also collaborating with artists, writers, researchers, musicians and performers. 

Working across a vast array of activities encompassing composition, sound design, installation art, field recording and workshops, his work has been featured in events such as the Adelaide Festival of Arts (2006), The National Regional Arts Festival (2012), Mildura-Wentworth Arts Festival (2013), Fairfax Festival (2013) and Adelaide Fringe Festival (2014); and selected works exhibited at galleries including The Australian Experimental Art Foundation (2009), SASA Gallery (2012, 2015), Light Square Gallery (2012) and FELT Space (2015). His audio works have been broadcast on radio including Radio National, Classic FM, The BBC (UK), Acoustic Frontiers (USA) and RBB (Germany).

Langhorne Creek borehole: strange sounds and deep resonances

Tristan Louth-Robins

Related tracks