If there is an acoustic hell, it is in today’s oceans, places now filled with far-carrying engine noise, the explosions of seismic oil exploration, and sonar. Hear how a small outboard engine drowns other sounds. This is a small example of Earth’s most severe sonic crisis, noise pollution in the seas. 

The book Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen to the marvels and fractures of the world. I hope that it inspires you to listen in your own place, finding your own sonic wonders. I offer the sound clips here as a sampler of the sounds and stories from the book. Longer versions of most are available for radio and podcasts.
Sounds Wild and Broken is available for pre-order in the US and UK, with translations forthcoming.
Copyright David George Haskell 2022.

Outboard Engine Amid Snapping Shrimp (Sounds Wild and Broken)

Tg.[0x4E].Q1

It turns out that there is a 'poetics of chaos.' A chaotic system, far from the popular conception of the inside of a tornado — violent, uncontrollable, never-ending disaster — is constantly seeking stability. It's just like you and me! It wants peace and stability. It will settle into stasis and never get up from the easy chair again, if there are no new conditions introduced into it. A chaotic system starts from a discrete set of variables that determine where it will end up. Thing is, it doesn't reach the same outcome with each iteration. Launch it, and it may head not for Mars but straight into the sun, or into the nearest 7-11. Even with the same initial conditions, the trajectory cannot be predicted with certainty. 

Each day, most of us wake up with more or less the same initial conditions as the day before. But the day never ends up in the same place. It's chaos. 

Unlike the time-honored Eurologic practice of erecting a musical structure whose integrity and realness is then proved or disproved under analysis, chaotic instrument practice allows both performer and listener to come together in the activity of observing behavior as it unfolds. 

Instruments on this track: Hordijk Blippoo Box, Meng Qi Wing Pinger, EMS VCS-3, Bastl THYME

Chaos at CNMAT, June 2024

KZSU Day of Noise 2016 (Excerpt 01)

KZSU Day of Noise 2016 (Excerpt 03)

KZSU Day of Noise 2016 (Excerpt 02)

Live In A Room, Part 2 (excerpt)

Live In A Room, Part One (excerpt)

Arrangement for 17-piece accordion orchestra & circuit-bent theremin by Tom Djll. 

Rhythm Ace programming, beverages & crunchy snacks by Clarke Robinson.

PSAs for Borderland Nocturnal Radio Stations (wood flooring)

Solo performance(hybrid-trumpets and "Naga Phoenix" slide trumpet) on Nov.17, 2018 at the Vigeland Mausoleum, Oslo as a part of Rajesh Mehta's guest professorship & workshop on "sounding buildings" at the Norwegian Theatre Academy, Fredrikstad, Norway.

Rajesh Mehta Solo Performance at the Vigeland Mausoleum, Oslo

A track featuring the early creations of master-synthesizer designer and builder Rob Hordijk. The instruments, Robtronium II and  TwentyFourSeven are prototypes of synthesizers like the Blippoo Box and the Benjolin.

Chaos at CNMAT, June 2024

Tom Djll

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