It is worthwhile to listen with apt sound reproduction equipment.

An older track (Rotach Kinetic Protocol) is included in the final album. A collaboration with Kirk's Trax (KooJa), is the climatic track in this album. Furthermore, there already a redo of Field Notes in a mesmerizing stonerjazz version.

All sounds, images, words and poems (apart from the contributions of collaborators): copyright jo richter
The title image shows a morphed view from a vantage point near Lake Constance.

another retrofuture compliance scheme

method: real cassette tape was involved  - as well as digital morphing sources 
narration: a meditation on what happens when recording on good old tape as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy … do homophones like „bruises/brews, is“ and  „sores/source“ still work in the illiterate spring of 2024?  ... have they ever done so? ... are they even homophones at all?
image: copyright jo richter ... the image was somehow inspired by the title of the second novel in Liu Cixin's Trisolaris cycle (and a landscape described in the last one)

lyrics / copyright jo richter:

electric capture
magnetic escape
the wow and flutter
of cellular tape

cohesion fractures
in the liminal gaze
mind‘s reflection
in 4d space

particle bruises
zero point sores
the cosmos breathes
through incarnate pores

zero point

method: first, I created a shaman-monk-version (mostly ‚Gregorian‘ voice and jaw harp) on cassette tape (this is where some of the noise - especially in the first section - derives from) and zoom r20 with a vacuum-tube pre-amp for the voice ….. all of which I then treated like a field recording sample in Samplitude - sculpting it with vst instruments and effects. 
narration: it feels like I have sonified this poem a million times before …. which might be the case because I have lived through it that often - I and others I dearly care for …. but then again … I might have actually done so. it is also part of the cycle SONIC CASCADE published in  A SINGLE LOOP OF FORTUNES. Alternative titles are ‚TWO-PLACE‘ and ‚04s SAMPLE‘. For this publication, I simplify the title to  ‚SAMPLE‘.
Image: copyright jo richter. you see some of the instruments used in the shaman-monk-version, arranged with a bracelet as though displayed in a museum. 

poem / copyright jo richter:

two-place sleeps on the ground
and still doesn‘t know where it is -
all of its strings sound sound
in heaven-hellish bliss -
nothing, it says, goes amiss
that doesn‘t want to be found

sample

method: crave, voice, vt 4, reface dx, voice, r20, samplitude ... it's more or less in b locrian, I guess ... a fitting mode.
Narration: the original title is ‘70s synthesizer‘ in the cycle SONIC CASCADES (as published in A SINGLE LOOP OF FORTUNES). imagine a family in Western Germany. it‘s the 1970s and  conforming to strict norms is the latest rage wherever the youth invasion (o for the horrors of the 'gammler'!!!!) had to be fought off. I spent the decade (and more) going to school and trying to cope with fellow human beings …. and there still was this all encompassing being …..  the best mode of survival (at that age, at any age) was identification ….. 
Image: copyright jo richter. it all started out with a portrait of my vt4 ;-) we're all robots anyways, aren't we? (still, no AI involved, - i'm just gimping my way to jerusalem!)

poem / copyright jo richter:

she steps in 
from the balcony
steps in to soothe
the tan on her skin

OH, WHAT A FIRE
MIGHT BE LIT
TO SMOKE OUT, TO BURN OUT
THIS SCENT IN HER HAIR

so many days
in her infancy
days she was told
to stop fidgeting

OH, WHAT A NOISE 
MIGHT BE MADE
TO FORCE OUT, TO DRIVE OUT
THE WEEDS, THE WEEDS

she spells out the spells
on her rosary
spices and herbs
flown in from the south

OH, WHAT A TIME
MIGHT BE HAD
JUST FIND OUT, JUST TURN IN
THE PLACE TO BE

so many veils
of dependency
too many veils
untangling within

OH, WHAT A SELF
MIGHT BE CUT
FROM STENCILS, FROM SHAPES
THAT WITHER WITHOUT

she sits down
in the living room
this is the room
where she lives

memory effect variation

method: voice via balabolka, instruments via samplitude
narration: that number seems to have a growing impact at the moment .... reminding me of a movie scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8f9feauyx8 - and also of the Ecology of Mind, a documentary made by Gregory Bateson's daughter Nora: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnL0ZB1SzZY
image: copyright jo richter, heritage trees breed, that's their nature

poem / copyright jo richter:

one
one
one
one
one
one two
one two three
one two three four
one two three four five
five
five
five
five
five

how many fingers


 method: mostly digital, btw her name is Hazel and I met her in a Balabolka engine  room where she hid from one of Bill Gates' younger clones
narration: the history of voice recreation and vocoding  is not only shrouded in the cold-war kind of truth but also a token of man's technological preoccupation with mirrors 
image: copyright jo richter, also using sections from my photo of a mural dating back to 1569 

poem / copyright jo richter:

time has slipped below the dial  
into an interstitial zone -
an abyss marking mass‘ modal 
iterations, as interference-prone 

as any mental skill held in a vial 
made of human flesh and bone -
meta-breathing arbitrary model 
citizens, grouped in groups and cloned alone

predictive voice encoder

I am overjoyed to partake in something beautiful:
https://stonerjazz.bandcamp.com/album/up-up-out

Jeff also gifted me a visiting role on his previous album: 
https://stonerjazz.bandcamp.com/album/quintessential

On his bandcamp page, Jeff points out: "This is the page where you can give some monetary support to me and the StonerJazz experiment."

.... and here is my own test account:
https://sonicstructuresandsilentstretches.bandcamp.com/track/eliza

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.

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)

predictive voice encoder

sonic structures and silent stretches