::: murmer ::: october sibilant (for michael northam) :::
Each Morning of the World #2 – North American PhoNographic Mornings #03/20, 2017
i don’t particularly feel like a reasonable ‘representative’ of north america, having now lived more of my life outside it than within it. but i did grow up there, and i do still have a soft spot especially for new england, and the not-easily-describable feelings that come with childhood memories of woods and coast, sounds, smells, and atmospheres. this makes the role feel a little more appropriate, as much of my work is about memory and past, and it allows me to present a sonic impression of a piece of my own past, however invented that impression may be. the sounds used are also from the past – all recorded, during a visit from my then-home in france, in the woods in vermont with my friend michael northam, near his own then-home, mostly on the 19th of october, 2008. we arrived at a spot along a small stream with some of our own sound-making devices (michael’s shakuhachi, a small zither with an ebow, a bag of bottlecaps…) that would interact with the water, pebbles and leaves that we found there (not to mention the passing airplane whose drone can be heard). we recorded until the sound of a rifle nearby made us both too nervous to continue, and we quickly packed up and scurried away. a few days later (on october 21st) we recorded a four-handed autumn leaf improvisation, which can also be heard here. the accompanying images are not from those same days (we had no camera), but from a few weeks earlier, taken on a day hike in the vermont mountains with my father, another cherished memory from that fine autumn.
from North American PhoNographic Mornings, track released September 3, 2017
all sounds found and/or produced by patrick tubin mcginley & michael northam, 2008
composed by patrick tubin mcginley, 2017
photos by patrick tubin mcginley, 2008
curated by Stéphane Marin
this is my contribution to stéphane marin’s ongoing project each morning of the world. this is the 2nd instalment, north american phonographic mornings, consisting of 20 contributions premiering over 20 weeks on sunday mornings, streaming on resonance extra and available on bandcamp. here is a little more info on the project:
stéphane marin presents a weekly series of twenty short soundscapes recorded in the mornings at various locations throughout north america. entitled « North American PhoNographic Mornings » this series forms part of a wider project, « Each Morning of the World », which invites sound artists, composers and recordists globally to share their own specific point of listening, either through a raw field recording or original composition. weekly on sunday morning.