Field recording is, by nature, an aleatory or chance affair. The soundscapes we record are so heterogeneous in nature that each recording will necessarily be full of chance, non-repeatable elements.
Failures or accidents produced through mistakes in the process of recording generate interesting, novel sonic occurrences. One could take these 'mistakes' as simple technical failures to be remedied through practice; or perhaps one could take moments of failure as generative of novel acoustical phenomena. Novelty is the name of the game, in the Whiteheadian sense. Novelty, difference, heterogeneity; these are the values that field recording has trained my ear to appreciate.
These values have the capacity to upend a whole series of assumptions built into Western music in such a way as to tear down the hegemonic edifice of the colonizers' culture. To raze the foundations is not purely destructive; it is constructive in the sense that they create space for new values, new material formations, new cultures to arise.
One sound taken from the 'Microblocks, vol.1' percussive found sound sample-pack. The sample-pack features 135 unique field recordings culled from the ordinary soundscapes of Santa Cruz, CA.
Find and download (for free) the rest of the sample pack here: https://fieldrecordingworkinggroup.bandcamp.com/releases
The sample pack comes with an accompanying essay describing the method, politics and historical context of the sample-pack.
Type
AIFF (.aiff)
Duration
0:01.486
File size
395.1 KB
Sample rate
44100.0 Hz
Bit depth
24 bit
Channels
Stereo
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