#field-recording

The Lofoten Islands are far more than a collection of dramatic mountains rising from the Norwegian Sea. They are a living soundscape where the ocean, the wind, seabirds, and towering granite peaks create an ever-changing natural symphony. Every fjord has its own acoustic character, every fishing village its own rhythm, and every change in the weather transforms the way the landscape…

In a sign of what is to come, Marja Ahti’s album Tender Membranes begins with the striking of a bell, its decay manipulated and stretched to almost two minutes before it is abruptly cut off. The sound of rushing water emerges from the silence first, before another ascending sound of metal and some gentle radio static pans across the stereo space. Despite the ever-shifting combination of sounds,…

Music criticism has historically under-valued the role context and framing play in influencing the space of listening— knowing a piece of music was composed in relationship to images inevitably colors how one interprets its sound. The horn-like drone that enters in the second minute of “Further North There Is Only the North Pole,” the second track on Mute Frequencies Svalbard Soundtracks, for…