Field Recordings Fo(u)r

13 Mar 2025

A new album of field recording based tracks

Another collection of field recording based tracks. Each track is a small gift to someone. Gathered over the last three years they have been manipulated, extended, and augmented, with an eye on providing some sort of memorable audio hook.

Field Recordings Fo(u)r on Bandcamp

Tracks

Morning Song (for Liz)

2022-07-15 7:17am

The lyric here is adapted from a traditional folk song, ’Twas on an April Morning, which I heard sung by Serious Sam Barrett at Bingley First Monday Folk. Two lines caught my attention, and I felt they would work with recordings I’d been making of bird song in the morning.

The field recording here and at the end of this album were made with the skylight window slightly ajar using a smartphone that was to hand.

This track uses the lyric “One morning, small bird sing”

Elvis (for Stu)

2022-04-28

Most of the credit for this track goes to Stu Bannister. We’d both been experimenting with Cecelia and with an audio set up in Stu’s cellar. We played with, and played along to, a recording Stu had made that had captured someone shouting at their dog (Elvis).

Stu made a ‘rough mix’ which is what you hear on this track. To me it’s perfect as it is.

Sigh (for shi)

Date is lost

This track came from experimenting with playing simple phrases that could potentially be looped, but trying to do so without using a looper. The guitar plays 3 distinct parts, using just two different chords, that layer and build. The guitar on the first half of the track can be played by a single musician, but the second half of the track chops and layers them up to create a sound that would have needed many musicians to reproduce.

The field recording is of a regular, comforting, life affirming sound I can hear from my home, of the children playing at the local primary school.

The song is for a shi, who helped me to come up with the title. Fall On Leaves (for Linda) 2023-12-02 11:16am

This manipulated field recording of snow falling on leaves and accidental, incidental conversation, is paired with a guitar. For me this feels like a forever memory.

Made Of Stone (for Elaine)

2023-05-11 11:40am

This track is built from a recording of the Lithophone at Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley, as played by Elaine from the Cliffe Castle Support Group. Really we were just messing around, but I love how the random beating of the instrument led to the creation of a hook; reminding me of an orchestra tuning up.

Plot 4 (for Helen)

2024-03-16 9:42

Plot 4 at the Allotment. The same. But always different.

Jasper Ridge (for Trevor)

2023-06-17 2:06am

A recording of the Jasper Ridge Birdcast via the LocusSonus Soundmap.

The stream is broadcast from the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Santa Cruz Mountains, California, USA 37° 24’ 13” N, 122° 14’ 16.8” W

You can listen any time you like to the Jasper Ridge Birdcast

Credits: Trevor Hebert at JRBP

I feel like I never heard anything quite like it before in my life. The track is an edit of the recording, condensing the sounds into loose patterns and then reconstructed into a sequence - almost like a song.

Another Morning Song (for Sam)

2024-03-20 8:14am

The field recording here and at the start of this album were made with the skylight window slightly ajar using a smartphone that was to hand.

This track uses the lyric “Don’t you spend all your long time in vain”

CREDITS

ARTWORK

The Argent Grub

AUDIO

Elvis (for Stu): Field recording by Stu Bannister Made Of Stone (for Elaine): Performed by Elaine Cooper Jasper Ridge (for Trevor): Recorded via Locus Sonus stream by Trevor Hebert from the Jasper Ridge Birdcast.

SOFTWARE

PLUGINS

THANKS

Liz, Stu, shi, Linda, Elaine, Helen, Trevor, Sam, LJK, Anyone who has ever made a linux audio plugin