Forest Listening Rooms on Bandcamp / Interview With Mary Lucier
First, a quick bit of news — I've decided to delay the release of Words and Silences to the early fall of 2022. This past fall has just been too overwhelming! Many thanks for understanding.
I also wanted to note that I was saddened by the death of the composer Alvin Lucier. By coincidence, his work had already been on my mind because of a recent interview I did alongside video artist Mary Lucier. We talked about our work, and our shared connections to Ohio. You can read more about it below.
And finally, head over to Bandcamp (Bandcamp is waiving their fees today) to listen to a newly remixed recording of Forest Listening Rooms, incorporating local voices, field recordings, and ambient music. This is the recording that was installed at the Columbus Museum of Art this year, and if you didn't get the chance to hear it, you can do so now. It has been remixed and newly mastered (thanks to Keith Hanlon at Secret Studio), and sounds great both on headphones and speakers.
Happy listening — Brian
FOREST LISTENING ROOMS ON BANDCAMP
After many years of walking, sitting, listening, and talking with local residents in the forests of Appalachian Ohio, I wanted to share some of the collected sounds: archival and contemporary voices, field recordings of flora and fauna, and ambient music that complements and reflects the environmental soundscape.
Forest Listening Rooms documents my listening experiences with residents in the Wayne National Forest in Appalachian Ohio. I see these encounters as personal, meaningful, and crucial to long-term social change in the region. They are a way to use a shared love for the land to make it a better place.
Forest Listening Rooms is a product of an eleven-year relationship developed with communities in Appalachian Ohio who live within the Wayne National Forest. It began with ethnographic research, followed by acquaintances and then friendships, and continues now with a deep admiration for the land and the people who live there.
For the past three years, I have been leading local residents out into the forest to critically listen to its past and present, and to engage in both contemplation and conversation through listening. We take sound walks, listen in silence, listen to archival and contemporary recordings of other residents, and then talk with one another about the land.
On this recording, you’ll hear the voices of past and present local residents of the forest in Appalachian Ohio; they recount their love for the land, memories of the past, disasters and underground mine fires, economic and political struggles over mining and extraction, and their hopes for the future. You’ll also hear field recordings of the natural environment of the forest: a spring chorus of pre-dawn birds, summer drones of insects, and faint autumn sounds of wind and rain on brittle, fallen leaves. Finally, you’ll hear the sounds of an ensemble of seven musicians, whose long tones and static, ambient harmonies complement and interact with the environmental and human sounds already present. (You can listen to the instrumental version of this piece and others on "Wayne National Forest.") Nature, people, and music all come together to create a recording that listens to the region as a way to understand its past and change its future.
INTERVIEW WITH MARY LUCIER FOR HOOSAC INSTITUTE
A couple of months ago, I took part in an interview alongside video artist Mary Lucier, as part of the Columbus Museum of Art Exhibit Partially Buried: Land Art Based in Ohio, 1970-Today. Curator Anna Talarico facilitated our conversation, and it was published by the Hoosac Institute Journal. We discussed our connections to Ohio, senses of place, land art, landscape, video and sound, and much more. (Photo credit: Calista Lyon, for the Columbus Museum of Art.)