Whilst field recordings are a huge area in their own right, here at OBLADADA, they aren’t something we’ve spent a lot of time specifically zoning in on.
However, spending time with Pablo Sanz’s strange strangers reminded us of an experience from a few years ago when listening to a recording made by a local artist. The piece combined piano with various electronic aspects in and around field recordings. In one particularly dynamic section, huge thunder claps punctuated a torrential downpour. The sleeve notes detailed the specifics. I felt sure I recognised the storm – living in broadly the same area and remember being caught whilst out mountain biking in a similarly distinctive storm during that same timeframe. The fact that this event wasn’t just any storm but somehow possibly ‘my’ storm changed my relationship with the sound.
Clearly, it’s impossible not to have some sort of overlap to these sorts of environmental sounds. After all, even when our ears aren’t looking for ‘music’ we are always bathed in some form of sonic landscaping.
However, over the last few days, we have spent hours looping artist, composer and researcher Sanz’s newest release – strange strangers. Built entirely from the sound of river tributaries and flooded forests across Amanã and Mamirauá in central Amazônia, it’s been fascinating hearing it intermingle with the current incessant rains of Midlothian, in Central Scotland. Whilst this 38-minute recording shifts through a huge range of textures and settings, it quickly dissolves into nothing more than a magnetic and abstract sonic adventure.
Clearly what we are listening to has a backstory, geopolitically, environmentally, and culturally. Where are we in the sound, on a boat, is it night time? What type of birds can we hear, and why is the location flooded? Is this some form of preservation? Is this a story? Or a form of installation?
There is, on one hand, questions about what we are hearing, an ongoing what is that? On the other hand, there is just a slow pan through sounds edited together and layered into a something that’s simply coming out the speaker right now as I type these words.
Whilst much of these points broadly apply to field recordings as a whole for us, whatever the backstory, it’s ultimately about the experience of listening.
Sanz has spent years researching and working in this area and whilst it’s our first encounter with his work, strange strangers has an oddly repeatable appeal. Treated simply as music, we are transported from the opening few minutes of bird song ambience into long watery smears, shadowy human presences, nebulous drones and odd almost rhythmic reflections and the mirage of distant jet engines.
Eventually we are lost, and have forgotten, simply seduced by sound.
Whilst it seems almost certain much of what is heard could be easily explained by Sanz, strange strangers, is a loaded statement that has immense power in its mysterious subtlety.
strange strangers is out now on Vertical Music, and available on cassette and digitally
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