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‘Field Recordings’

Big Tabs

Big Tabs

looking backwards, going forwards
I have a few records with ‘field recordings’ forming the majority or part of the album.

Playing this today - I had a load ages ago, but sold them in the charity shop. There is something very absorbing about the recording, especially when voices or animals are heard. The repetition of the wheels on the track is hypnotic. The recording is in stereo, which adds a lot.

No Artist – The World Of Steam


More images

Label: Argo (2) – SPA 103
Series: Argo Transacord, The World Of (3)
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Stereo
Country: UK
Released: 1970
Genre: Non-Music
Style: Field Recording

I have other stuff, mainly African tribal chants/singing.

What you got?
 
madmike said:
I've a few of those sound effect albums...
Click to expand...

Yes - they sell quickly in the charity shop. The last few I had was BBC Wild birds. and one full of explosions, trains coming into stations etc. They sold that week.

Sort of thing I wanted from the local library 35 years ago to add effects on to tapes I was making.
 
When I worked for a talking newspaper we did field recordings, using a Sony minidisc recorder and good quality mic.
They were exceptionally good, much better than anticipated.
One made walking through a wood and describing the walk and the surroundings was very atmospheric.

I once made one at a local mill which had a beam engine, recording the engine and those involved.
It had to be less than 10 mins. long to qualify in a competition.
We got it down to 9 mins. 58 seconds.
We came second in the competition.
 
This is an area which interests me, it’s very active are among contemporary musicians and I’ve explored what is happening in it a little. Let me start by mentioning some things which I think are extremely seductive and imaginative, Francisco Lopez Conops and La Selva. You’ll find them streaming and on YouTube, and Francisco Lopez published online some information about the principles which he used to make the music.


Earlier fascinating explorations of what can be made of field recordings are in David Toop’s Fox Spirits and his famous Lost Shadows, David Dunn's Emergent Life of the Pond and Malcolm Goldstein’s Vermont cycle

Of course there’s also Luc Ferrari - most erotically in his Danses Organiques, and most famously in his Presque Rien.
 
paulfromcamden said:
@mandryka you've reminded me of Evan Parker With Birds. Birds provided by Ashley Wales and John Coxon.

Click to expand...


Thanks for that, I love that sort of thing.

There is a lot of composed music which use field recordings in the mix like that improvisation, Michael Finnissy's 3rd string quartet is an example, and Jonathan Harvey's concerto with birdsong. I like this one most in fact


Christopher Fox More things in the air than are visible: III. —

Another aspect is in electronic music, people who use electronics to recreate natural field sounds. I think Xenakis started this (I forget the name of the piece but I'll dig it out if anyone's interested) And there's an amazing thing by David Tudor called Rain Forest. More recently I really enjoyed this release:

Chris Mercer- The Audible Phylogeny of Lemurs

Chris Mercer- The Audible Phylogeny of Lemurs - YouTube
 
The EMI L2 portable tape machine (circa 1952) was one of the first machines to produce near studio quality in a easily transported recording device. When My Dad was working at EMI at that time he said that someone who knew what he was doing took an L2 down to Hayes goods yard and recorded the various shunting, coupling steam and other effects. They played the tape back on a studio machine and apparently it was unbelievably realistic, showing how good location recordings could be even seventy years ago.

https://www.google.com/search?q=emi...HXkyDr0Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1280&bih=871&dpr=1

Leevers Rich were also producing location recording equipment in the early fifties but their machines were larger and required a car battery to power them.
 
A while ago I read this great book by Samual Charters about his adventures in the late 1950s lugging a tape recorder around the Bahamas recording guitar players with his partner Ann Danberg. Amazon

I think there's a lot to be said for recording traditional and folk music in it's natural environment. I love the recordings he made of Jospeph Spence playing outdoors on the steps of a house. None of his later studio recordings come close imo.

 
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