Audio example of Cjossul Hydrophone / Contac Mic.

Cjossul - Water

Ysysпrice by Black Fanfare (St Inflate Remodel)

The obese and the friar

"it speaks now it's dead" (excerpt) - track 7 from "Tracking Satyrs into Morse"

produced by David Rothenberg
artwork and visualization by Michael Deal

What record album was so important that ten million copies of it needed to be pressed at once? You guessed it. Songs of the Humpback Whale. In 1979 National Geographic Magazine inserted a flexible "sound page" inside the back cover of all of its editions in twenty-five languages, and that is supposedly how many they printed. No human pop star has ever received such magnanimous treatment, so what is it that is so special about the songs of the humpback whale?

Well, for one, humans knew nothing of this fabulous sound until the US Navy released its classified recordings at the end of the 1960s, at the very moment the world was most poised to listen to the unknown, the psychedelic, and the trippiest of sounds. Humpback whale song fit the bill perfectly. From high wails to deep growls to rhythmic scratches to tearful moans, it encompasses the full range of emotions in the longest song performed by any animal, a tune that can go on for nearly twenty-four hours at a time. People are often moved to tears when they hear such intensity for the first time. Some cannot believe it could ever come from a place as silent as the sea. This song inspired the global movement to Save the Whales which continues unto this day.

People tend to assume humpback whale song just a "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooh" and leave it at that. But if you sit down and listen to a complete humpback performance you will find that the long moan is only one note in a complex composition, with distinct phrases, repetition, structure, organization, shape and form akin to many kinds of human music. This is no random outburst of cries and whispers, but a song with power, verve, identity, and design.

It is a desire to go beyond memory and into the sounds of reality that has led us to release New Songs of the Humpback Whale, which aims to gather the best recent recordings of scientists and whale listeners the globe over to give all of us a chance to assess what has happened to whale song over the past few decades. One can hear gradual changes in humpback song from year to year, with some phrases lengthening, others shortening, others disappearing altogether as new variations appear. The change can be heard month to month, and even week to week within a single season. Today's whale songs should sound quite different from what he fondly remembers from the sixties. But is their musical culture going downhill? Or is it on the rise? Or just changing? Can we humans even tell the difference?

To tell the difference Michael Deal, designer of the Pinterest logo and a veteran of Google and Splice, has created a new way to visualize humpback whale song, based on sonograms familiar to sound scientist but simplified into colorful glyphs making the structure of this grand underwater music easier to understand than ever before.

Though humpback whale song did not evolve for humans to appreciate, it may be no accident that we do. Upon hearing the great song for the first time, whale scientist Roger Payne said he heard the size of the ocean, "as if I had walked into a dark cave to hear wave after wave of echoes cascading back from the darkness beyond.... That's what whales do, give the ocean its voice."


Humpback Whale in Madagascar from New Sounds of the Humpback Whale CD

Loose drive ice in a swell by Siikaranta shore, Reposaari Finland.  I made a hole in the ice bank and got the microphones under the ice shelf.

Updating www.baltic.fi

(MKH 8020, SD702, unedited track, FLAC)

Inside an Ice Cave- 13/3/2016 - Baltic Shore

Some miners try to free a narrow passage throwing rocks into a deep black crevasse.
Sounds from one of the location of our ‪documentary‬ Gods of Mexico. 
vimeo.com/142931655
www.instagram.com/godsofmexico/

rocks thrown into the abyss by mexican miners

Unmixed, unmastered polyrhythmic shit. A revised version will be uploaded soon. Synths made with Aalto


Aunt Veronica

H1Amber (live 28th May 2015)

Soundtrack for Gertrude Stein's "DR. FAUSTUS LIGHTS THE LIGHTS"  
directed by Claudia Tatinge Nascimento; presented at CFA, Wesleyan University, Connecticut, April 2012.
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All sounds rcorded cmposed and mxed in hackney,London and Middletown,Connecticut by Demetrio Castellucci / 2012 .
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about the production:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/press-doctorfaustus.html

Dr. Faustus Lights The Lights

"Kassidat", the Arabic word for poetry, is one of the essential ingredients in Moroccan song. Despite the bewildering array of musical styles in Morocco, the Moroccan sense of poetry is found throughout the music, regardless of the style or language. This isn’t the language of high art, but an often impenetrable vernacular poetry of oblique references, symbols, metaphors, and double entendres that describes the lives of average Moroccans.  — from <i>Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco</i>
For more information: dust-digital.com/kassidat

"it speaks now it's dead" (excerpt) - track 7 from "Tracking Satyrs into Morse"

UNARCHEOLOGY

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