Cave Transmission 1

Using documentary audio recorded inside of Petty John's Cave, David Matysiak reimagines the tragic legacy of legendary caver Floyd Collins for the 21st century.

Floyd Collins Mindsurf

In this sound collage Devin Brown recalls an excursion with John Paul Floyd to make fine art photographs in Petty John's Cave. In addition to documentary audio taken during the venture itself this piece is also composed of recordings from Speleogen's music rehearsals and text prepared and read by Devin.

Brushes Forged with Light

While the cave environments we’ve so far explored can sometimes seem almost unnaturally soundless, the ambient soundscape is actually replete with riches for the ears if you attune yourself to it. 

In this piece of documentary sound art David Mastysiak investigates the sonic qualities of dripping water, sounds that represent the aural residue of the processes that sculpt and mold cave morphology over time. 

Composed of manipulated field recordings and sounds pilfered from the nether reaches of the Internet, this piece also features Matysiak playing hang drum.

If the Droplet is a Chisel then the Pool it Plummets into is a Drum

For years the National Speleological Society has hosted a Cave Ballad Salon wherein spelunkers enter cave-themed songs that they’ve penned into a compeition that is judged by their peers and associates. The results of these musical interpretations of the caving life are then announced at the NSS’s national convention.

While rummaging through an antique store in recent months, Mason Brown excavated a vinyl LP that had collected the entries from the 1972 Cave Ballad Competition. Given that Speleogen’s modus operandi is to transform our sensorial experiences of cave environments into sound and visual art, this decades old example of cave song craftsmanship proved almost too good to be true, connecting our own efforts to a long and apparently storied tradition.

Titled Where the Rain Never Falls, this record comprises a compilation of both folky and jokey cave tunes, which Mason has remixed and manipulated to create his very own interpretation that is equal parts Christian Marclay and King Tubby.

Where The Falls Never Rain

On August 24, 2013 the Speleogen Team returned to Pigeon Mountain just outside of Lafayette, GA, and descended into Petty John’s Cave for the third time.

The trip, which was spearheaded by photographer/adventurer John Paul Floyd and rock climber extraordinaire Jordan Mitchell, was the most physically and mentally challenging that the Team had undertaken yet.

Its purpose was to navigate the five-person unit underneath Pigeon Mountain to the banks of an underground waterfall that had been identified on a collection of maps given to us by a group of more experienced cavers when we arrived to make our first descent.

Once we had wormed ourselves sufficiently deeply belowground the group would not emerge again for another 7 hours during which time our mettle would be tested by a number of obstacles both physical and psychological in nature.  

Several months after returning home (mostly) unscathed from this journey, Speleogen director Devin Brown reconvened the Team in their hometown of Atlanta in the interest of soliciting from each Team member his narrative descriptions of the trek.

The result is this polyvocal cavecast. Conceptualized by Devin and playfully engineered by Mason Brown with David Matysiak’s assistance, this piece uses the sounds of our voices coupled with documentary audio captured underground to illustrate how our group excursions are expressions of a surprising and often improvised collective will as well as they are opportunities for sustained independent self-reflection. It demonstrates also how in retrospect we process and assimilate our memories and sense impressions of the cave environment as artists and documentarians.

Beneath the Mountain Flows a Stillness: A Speleogen Cavecast

Unraveling Through Hyperreality

Several months ago as snowstorms wrought havoc on Metro Atlanta members of Team Speleogen found themselves tucked away from the ice and snow with songwriter and first-time New Cave Art contributor Madeline whom the Team had befriended years previously while living in Athens, GA.

At the time the Team was just beginning to hatch its plans to visit Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, and the specter of the brave but ultimately doomed caver Floyd Collins hung heavily in all our minds.

On that snowy day in Georgia, decades after Collins’s untimely demise, Madeline and the Speleogen Team therefore hatched a plan: Using Collins’s story as a songwriting springboard Madeline would compose a new tune about him, updating the narrative for the 21st century. The song would also serve as our official theme for the Mammoth Cave excursion.

The resulting piece--which represents a collaboration between Madeline, Mason, Devin, and David--is the haunting yet still irresistibly jaunty “Big Black Dark Lonesome Hole.” The piece is comprised of home recordings Madeline produced and sent to Mason who added further embellishments, including documentary audio from Mammoth Cave itself.

The song, which is our very first collaboration with Madeline, also inaugurates the Mammoth Era in Speleogen’s development. 

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