EARS HAVE EYES // Episode 15
Airing Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 8 pm MST
on CJSW 90.9 FM
SLOW REVEAL:
hidden beneath the winter sheath, released by thaw of spring
SOUND ARTISTS:
Andrew Davidson
Audrey Lane Cockett
Cristian Estrella
Eryk Salvaggio
Masha Kashyna
Phantom Orchid
Simon Le Boggit
Sylvi macCormac
Tibor Donath
Co-hosted by Wayne Garrett & Caitlind Brown, edited by Caitlind.
This month’s episode of EARS HAVE EYES is part of The Hibernation Project.
EARS HAVE EYES is a monthly sound art radio program airing on CJSW 90.9 FM in Calgary/Mohkinstsis. You can listen to podcasts of previous episodes here.
The work on our April program arrives as an emergence – shaking off the cold and rust and loneliness of wintertime, and flowering outwards into the sun. As we here in Calgary/Mohkinstsis emerge from a cold winter into the uncertain thaw of spring, we share the residual creative output of that long, dark time.
The compositions on our first Spring show respond to the sprouting of nature after the winter subsides – the slow portrait of a person through documentary storytelling, the revealing of a place through field recordings, the unfolding of feelings through music…. each piece reveals something about emerging into a new awareness, environment, or context – as if melting through the snow.
Thanks to the participating artists and our friends at CJSW!
Andrew Davidson
Andrew Davidson is a local musician, bicycle racer, and crafter of elaborate cardboard experiments.
Apocalypse Dance, Day Out, Drunk Dreams, Night Snow, and Robot Lovers Quarrel are vignettes like musical musings, described by Andrew as “scraps” – sketches casually created and recorded on his cellphone, captured as notes for future work.
Audrey Lane Cockett
Audrey Lane Cockett is a spoken word poet, filmmaker, soundscape artist, artistic director, educator, and ecologist based in Treaty 7 land, Calgary AB. Their work embodies wild feminist rhetoric, political discontent, tender feels in a body that overheard it was broken, deep time, and river rhythm.
Homebody was written at home and recorded in the artist’s opulent bathroom (complete with bathtub keyboard, shower bass, and percussion using the toilet seat, sink, and lamps) for last week’s digital performance, HOMEBODIES – an event airing on Zoom as part of The Hibernation Project 2023.
Cristian Estrella
In his own words, Cristian Estrella is:
…an octopus born in Buenos Aires and currently based in Europe.
Exploring the interplay between different areas of communication.
I follow my instinct to discover the brighter side of life.
The Frozen Oasis was composed, mixed and mastered in Spain for the project “Polar sounds”, Cities and Memory in association with The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB), and Ocean Acoustic Research Group at AWI. Scientists have placed underwater microphones to record the audio from living species and geological processes in the Arctic and Antarctic. The aim is to highlight the impact in the regions due to the climate change.
“During the creation process, I found that even in the sound of dolphins’ teeth biting, there are small microtonal differences. Rhythms that suggest continuity, but change. Jazz. And there I started with an idea: to take that rhythms and those different heights, to achieve a work where the ambient sound is at the same gain as the instruments, and that works as a roadmap for the development. Harps, synthesizers, bells, voices, bass, strings, theremin, some percussion. Everything adapts and fits together like a puzzle, depending on the field recording. The beat definitely emulates the throat sounds of whales. The strongest part of the track is then assembled on this rhythm. A melting ice works as a snare drum and the voices copy the sound of the dolphins. They speak their language. Everything was assembled in Ableton Live, using some virtual instruments, but above all, the greatest work consisted in accentuating and accompanying at the same precise and exact time, each of the sounds expressed by the animals. At the end, the instrumentation game is revealed, being alone without the original track for a few seconds. The name “The frozen OASIS” is an anagram of the initial letters belonging to Odontocete Species And Sea Ice, and is used in two senses: oasis as a place to rest, to breathe, to reset. But also as a place in the desert. An alarm of what could happen even in the Arctic, if global warming continues.”
Eryk Salvaggio
Eryk Salvaggio is an artist and researcher based in Rochester, NY, whose work with artificial and non-human intelligence is intended to encourage new design paradigms for an increasingly interconnected world. His website is cyberneticforests.com, where he explores intersections of nature, culture, and technological systems through art and writing.
Pinning is literally the sound of mushrooms just as they are starting to emerge from soil. Bursting with activity, the electronic signals were incredibly dense and the resulting track is borderline dance music (if dance music was made by mushrooms).
Masha Kashyna
Masha Kashyna (1991) is a sound and media artist with activistic roots, who expresses herself on vibraphone and soprano saxophone. Masha, born and raised in Ukraine, has been living in Germany for several years. Her interest in socio-cultural and artistic movements is translated into a cross-genre and trans-medial way of working. She is a hybrid of Ukrainian classical training and rebellious street culture. Her compositions and improvisations are reminiscent of soundtracks from thrillers not yet filmed, soothing daydreams and exciting journeys, melancholic memories of times long past…
Mirror was originally a quadraphonic composition, bringing the outside space to the inside, reflecting the surface of nature within an architectural space. It once appeared as a soundtrack in a room full of mirrors and lights in the mid of a forest. In any case, the winter melancholy is revealing latest with the entrance of the violin played by kurdish violinist Derin Gardi Shwani. “Mirror” grew out of the pandemic calmness, but with heavy deforestation of Lützerath not far from Hanover which happened in January, it got a new meaning, reminding us about peace which we can find only in nature.
PHANTOM ORCHID
Phantom Orchid is a project of ethereal pop vocalist Kira Sawatzky, of recording project Japan Sue. Kira left the music scene in order to pursue a love of botany and babies. The ether dialed her back to provide you with some glitchy soulful pop.
Effervescence is an exploration of the benevolence of the afterlife, and an invitation to unlearn the patterns that keep us from being our authentic selves.
Simon Le Boggit
Simon Le Boggit is a UK based multimedia artist focusing on the distillation of “meaning” from chaos.
Simon Le Boggit’s Quantum Soup Orchestra website can be found here: http://quantumsouporchestra.weebly.com
Dawn Chorus Perception is an original field recording of English summertime woodland birdsong, multi-layered at several lower speeds, to hint at how these sounds may perhaps be perceived by creatures of various smaller sizes and faster metabolic rates.
Sylvi macCormac
Sylvi macCormac is a Composer Musician Actor who began WHEELS Soundscapes: Voices of People with Disabilities at VAMS in 1998; received International Honourable Mention in France 1999 for the composition Waves of Kokoro; screened the documentary Patience & Absurdity in London during the 2012 Paralympics; acted in the 2018 Canadian Feature Film Bella Ciao! and “walk-on” role in the CBC series ‘Charmed’ 2021; and with assistance of VAMS Engineer Bryden Veinnot released in 2023 Brother Bear & Bent Boxes: a Radio Portrait of Russell Wallace, Stat’liam Lil’wat Composer Musician Vocalist.
About BROTHER BEAR & BENT BOXES: RUSSELL WALLACE, An Echo Acoustic Portrait of QEKSIYEKSUT in the artist’s words:
RUSSELL WALLACE QEKIYEKSUT loves many and is loved by many. I am honoured to be Given Permission to create an Echo Acoustic Portrait of Russell Wallace, Awarded Stat’liamX Composer Producer, Traditional Lil’wat Singer and inDigiPop Musician, with excerpts from 20 tracks produced over 40 years. Is it Electro Acoustic or Echo xaAcoustic? Is it an Audio or Radio Portrait ? Here’s to our Brother Bear, Brave, Soft, Sensitive, Emotional, Fierce, Determined, Knowledgeable, Beyond Funny Elder.
Composed by Sylvi macCormac with excerpts of Russell Wallace Music.
1980-2021, Interview and Soundscape Co-Produced & Engineered wit Bryden Veinot illustrations Corrine Hunt Russell Wallace Bria Symington Michèle Murphy Designs Naz Tamaddon Nicole Dextras. Kukwstum̓ úlhkalap Thank You Mam’Noon Huy Chewx A Go Rabh Maith. Agat Corrine Hunt Russell Wallace Bria Symington Michèle Naz Tamaddon. Nicole Dextras Barry Truax ‘Soundscape Composition as Context Based. Creation’ SFU Dr T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss All My Relations. Gifted to Russell Wallace Lil’wat Nation British Columbia. Dedicated to Taran Standing Sunrise Kootenhayoo Youth Sinead O’Connor. Produced & Published in Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, Canada
Dr. Tibor Donath
Dr. Donath is a Hungarian sound artist, lawyer and journalist, founder of SynthXLoop Audio. Since 2020, his sound installations have been exhibited mainly in fine art exhibitions.
About Fairy Garden from The SoundHunter Project:
You can make a fairy garden as small as a flower pot, but you need music to make the fairies sing. This is a little play box. And the sound design possibilities for the fairy garden are endless, with voices from all over the place, from blackbirds, Great tits, sparrows and doves, it’s all up to your imagination. If I shift the pitch down an octave, I can imagine myself in a tropical rainforest. Listen!
Thank you to the artists & listeners!
Special thanks to CJSW.
Want to share your sound art on future episodes of EARS HAVE EYES?
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THE HIBERNATION PROJECT 
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