165: How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life.
stopGOstop: field recordings, sound collage, and sound artShow Notes
A field recording of Lake Michigan, interweaving chromatic scales, and arpeggios, episode 165 of the podcast features a new composition for a small ensemble (or rather a computer pretending to be a small ensemble).
The piece was partly inspired by several bike rides I took this weekend, from Evanston to a nature preserve near South Shore Cultural Center(Chicago). The weather was near perfect for bike riding, 70 degrees, with a slight wind. But the waves were rough, tossing and turning from every direction.
The piece takes its first note, middle C, from the book I finished this weekend, Orfeo, by Richard Powers. The title also appears in the novel, as the lyrics for an experimental piece Peter Els, the composer/DIY microbiologist in the novel, sees at a coffee house. He identifies it as Reich. Wittgenstein. Proverb. To paraphrase Els from later in the novel, I will never have anything to break; everything is already broken and glued back together in a mosaic of pretty bits…
More from stopGOstop: field recordings, sound collage, and sound art
Over the past month and a half, I’ve been working on an archive project—digging up and remastering radio work I was involved in from 2004–2006. I’ll be re-releasing select episodes as a part of this podcast. If you are interested, you can follow the progress of the archive here.
Vim, Vigor and Vitality (or Arrangements Are in Hand or is it Self-Hypnosis) drifts between assertion and reassurance. A slow pulse moves underneath the piece, joined by the low, sustained presence of a cello. Voices surface in fragments, pause, and return, circling the British takeover of the Falkland Islands—not as a lesson in history, but as an echo that refuses to settle.
As the air cools, the water does not freeze all at once—it slows. Heat rises from the surface and meets the cold air above, creating a thin fog that drifts like breath. Small crystals begin to form in the moving water, collecting gradually.
Episode 205 of the stopGOstop podcast. Voices from day five of Apollo 11, moments of contemplation, and manipulated sounds.
Last week we watched the 1983 made for tv movie The Day After. This weeks, a new piece consisting of sound collage, field recording and sonic composition.