Follies for Future Phenomenologists

Method: Initially planned to sound out with VST-instruments, the track ended up not using any at all - though quite some vocoding etc.
Narration: A poet overcomes a spell of depressive dissociation. The white mare - just like St John's bonfire night  -  is one of the ancient symbols of the summer solstice.

Lyrics / copyright jo richter:

Last winter's fall of mournful white
Still blanketed his one delight
When springtime caved and summer reared
With thunderstorms of humid heat

Bonfires glistened in the night
Like sparks within his distant sight
That lit up brightly, disappeared
All impulse, lusting, joie de vie

He found a pen, sat down to write
And words came freely, glad to reunite
In poetry, in poetry!
White mare hoofprints on this sheet

white mare

White Mare

Method: Apart from the short intro - taken about 30 metres from the site of the main recording at a small hillside spring - this  recording consists of a single, unchanged take. It was evening and I was sitting next to a small chapel on a hill overlooking a bend in the road.
Narration: This is the story of civilisation, told from the same perspective that claims that mud breeds frogs. After all, there is quite some truth to that point of view - in a way biology is just about to find out .... The title of the German poem translates as: "paths". 

Lyrics / copyright jo richter:

menschen gehen auf pfaden
pfade schaffen sich sohlen

pfade werden zu wegen
wege schaffen sich kutschen

wege werden zu straßen
straßen schaffen sich transit

an straßen lagern sich städte
städte schaffen sich menschen

an städte lagern sich werke
werke schaffen beschäftigung

an werke lagern sich halden
halden sickern ins umland

die ganze welt wird zur halde
halden bedecken die welt

durch halden ziehen sich pfade
pfade, die menschen gehen

auf sohlen, die scherben abwehren
langsam, im gleißenden licht
langsam, im gleißenden licht




-

Pfade

Method: As in the last track, I try to incorporate traffic sound - according to the notion: if it disturbs, it asks to become a structural element  - in this case cars passing by and crossing a beautiful but quite sound intensive, wooden bridge over the river Schussen. The rest of what you hear are efforts to recreate the water's space. 
Narration: As in "Rotach Kinetic Protocol" or "Static and Stones on the Banks of the Argen", this is a celebration of one of the regional waterways. Also, double entendres relating to linguistic history are not avoided. In many instances, water is a far denser medium of communication than air.

Lyrics/copyright jo richter:

the very moment
a raindrop splashes onto the surface
of the restlessly running waters
ripples mingling with ripples
currents crossing counter-currents

the very impulse
of the river rushing into the lake
driving driftwood ahead
cooler, clandestine, cetacean
not yet willing to settle

the morning offering
of mists blinding cormorants, herons
drowning out fishermen's engines -
each event envelops enigma
coded in water, dissolving in time

The Schussen Enigma

Method: Layering and morphing. This is the first time a computer-generated voice overlays mine.
Narration: How to sound out the beyond with all its different kinds of sound and listening?

Lyrics / copyright jo richter:

talking in tongues
of fluid evasion, vapid convulsion
the cloud walking shaman shivers
trails the tall thunder beings
greying the day, raining the rain

approaching, approaching
the winged one has swallowed his scent
the nahhual negator, the annihilator
the feeder on life force
guarding this realm

struck by a flash
cut to consume creation
the shaman is forced into freedom
his carcass dispersing, condensing
draining,  descending, drop freeing drop

For You - Beyond The Scenes

Method: Adapting time measures by hand while trying to create 'heavy' sound from amassing and morphing relatively light-sounding objects.
Narration: I imagine some giant, ancient, mythical beast curled up deep inside the planetary crust being approached by machinery operated by people in sterile lab coats.

Lyrics / copyright jo richter:

this is an announcement of the planetary intelligence, co-sponsored by the Poetry Party of the cultural archipelago and recorded for your personal enjoyment

terraforming

erde trägt dich
erde trägt mich

the core extends to the biosphere 

erde trägt

erde dreht sich
erde hält nicht
erde hält

erde dauert
erde dauert
terra firma

erde dauert
erde dauert
terra firma

this my astrophysical body

erde stemmt luft
erde stemmt licht
erde stemmt

erde gibt leben
erde nimmt leben
erde lebt

grow fit adapt

erde dauert
erde dauert
terra firma

thank you for listening to this announcement of the planetary intelligence, co-sponsored by the Poetry Party of the cultural archipelago and recorded for your personal enjoyment

terra firma

Terra Firma

Experimental with my favorite modular :Qu-bit Nebulae 2

What do you see in this world?

Enjoy

Your Eyes And You Can See :Experimental

Head In the Clouds (Stripped of Screen Time)

Words and music by Roger Whittlesey. Audric Jankauskas plays the lead guitar solos. All other sounds by Whittlesey. © 2024

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOc4A4stx9k

I'd like to thank Audric for joining me on this song. Audric has been hard at work on some music he's eager to finish, but after I sent him this song he was kind enough to put his music on temporary hold so that he could play his blazing, virtuoso guitar solo. 

Audric and I both have our feelings about what this song is about, but we leave it up to you the listener to consider making your own meaning. Art is always open to interpretation. Art doesn't live in a binary universe; rather, it has gray areas and what I consider to be art may not be artistic at all in your view. I just ask that you listen with an open mind.

I thank you, as always, for continuing to return to my channel, and for supporting my music once again. 

All my best, 

Roger
April 2024

DIRTY HANDS

Dirty Hands (featuring Audric Jankauskas)

I was reading an article recently where Billy Idol was describing his "California Sober" lifestyle and he provided some perfect lyrics for a piece I had written earlier this year.  Thank you Billy Idol!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/billy-idol-california-sober-drug-addiction-1235014040/

Why Try And Fight It

More interesting audio @ https://adammajdecki-janicki.bandcamp.com/. Vinyl @ https://herbyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/adam-majdecki-janicki

"Cider"

Capas de instrumentos de cuerda acompañan a un cantante increíble que guitarra canciones épicas sobre romances y orgullo. 

The layers are of strings.

capas de cuerda

I'm Clean

down by the waterside we could smell the sea air and all the life
to be around

like the wind blows

down by the water's edge we could hear the sound of migration
and feel the change of the season

Michael Weber's Album

the wind ii

Direct Source / In The Jungle

POETRY IS VITAL

This threshold space exists for those who feel like listening to some of my quite professional poetry embedded in rather amateurishly recorded but judiciously arranged sound, a modicum of purely acoustic work notwithstanding.  Fortunately, some other artists have also transformed the symbolic expression of my words into the tangible beauty of real songs and soundscapes - just listen to Sympoetic Ultrasounds: https://soundcloud.com/sonic-textures/sets/sympoetic-ultrasounds !

SOUND, SPACE AND TIME

Tend your listening senses gently. Even though my general approach welcomes and embraces lo-fi concepts like the precision of spontaneously occuring imprecisions, headphones worth their membranes are recommended - unless you like your sounds flat, mangled, battered and helpless. You don't, do you? Be kind to these soundscapes.

STRUCTURING IMPULSE

Due to the nature of "poetry soundscapes", your listening expectations regarding traditionally structured "songs", sonically purified "raw wildlife soundscapes", keyboard-laden "ambient recordings" or voice-centered "readings" might not be met. You will find some of those in my list of /likes/. "Noise" is a recurring structural element like any other. This is what this sounds like - within its own rights, limitations, tangents and interconnections. Sonic structures. Silent stretches. Poetry emerges from the gaps between the ruts, seeps in from the undergrowth, sweeps down.

CARVING, CHISELLING, KNEADING, MORPHING

A quick glance into my toolshed rests on Zoom recorders, Samplitude software and a dizzying array of diverse sonic machinery. After all, sound is one way my poems know to materialize - insolently shapeshifting, indelibly greening into the cultural real.

LARGE AND SMALL GIFTS

-----------------------------
Small Gifts

the less to remember, the more to listen
gifts from the ice age reverberate
a simple story, a forest, a coastline
entangled in silence, one starts to relate
---------------------------------------------

In case you have read up to this point, you might be a sonic creator yourself. May I ask you for a helping ear? Above, there is a tiny poem of mine that I do not understand how to translate into sound. If you do - please act on it. It is a matter of common decency, of course, to keep the title (Small Gifts) and to credit the lyrics to me (jo richter). And please do notify me of your version via a soundcloud message. One bewilderingly beautiful version crafted by mono-lux has already gone public, as well as an amazing version by cthonicist.  You'll find both in my playlist Sympoetic Ultrasounds. This is just a small gift, not a challenge - life already has more than enough of those on offer, doesn't it? Treat it this way.

POETRY IS VITAL
sound, space and time
structuring impulse
carving, chiselling, kneading, morphing
large and small gifts
poetry is vital

GENERAL POLICY regarding the use of LIKES, REPOSTS and FOLLOWS:
I like what I like and want to hear again.
I only repost what I've had a hand in creating.
I follow when I see directions or arrivals I like, not when followed (though I might peek in to get an idea of what your sounds are about). I have set myself a limit of accounts I follow not to be all too overwhelmed. Not following does therefore not mean I do not appreciate what you contribute to the enjoyments of soundcloud.
Do not expect other behaviour from me.
(jo richter)

For You - Beyond The Scenes

sonic structures and silent stretches

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