An excerpt of the work Beneath The Forest Floor by Hildegard Westerkamp is included in the soundtrack of the film Elephant, by American filmmaker Gus Van Sant, winner of both the Palme d’Or and Best Director prizes of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The music from and inspired by the motion picture is now available on French label MK2.

During the Guelph Jazz Festival (Ontario), Musicworks magazine, committted to finding new forms of expression in the sound arts, presents a “25th anniversary audio art installation” featuring audio works from the last 25 years with composers Schafer, Dutton, Oswald, Westerkamp, Oliveros, Truax, Le Caine, and lanza.

Field recordings have always fascinated electroacoustic composers, ever since Pierre Schaeffer’s Cinq études de bruits (1948), featuring processed train sounds. With R Murray Schafer’s Vancouver Soundscape 1973 (1972-73), these everyday sounds are articulated around a discourse which will be termed “sound ecology,” whereby sounds keep their original meaning, and no longer serve as anecdotic content to be used and abused at the composer’s whim. Jonty Harrison synthesises these two approaches in his short text {cnotice:imed_0052-0001/About Évidence matérielle/cnotice}.

Actually, every composer seems to have their own unique approach towards field recordings. If sound ecology has seen the burgeoning of microphone artists such as Claude Schryer and of course Hildegard Westerkamp and her famous {cpiste:imed_9631-1.3/Kits Beach Soundwalk/cpiste} (1989), sound travels such as French duo Kristoff K Roll’s CD Corazón Road (1993) are, in this respect, closer to the art of documentary film. Meanwhile, Brooklyn-based composer Jon Hudak starts off with an extremely minimalist palette so as to seek out the “essence” of sounds, which, to the listener, translate into soft, dreamy soundscapes. A student of the aforementioned Jonty Harrison, Natasha Barrett conceives beautiful landscapes of sounds with very discreet field recordings, that retain an aesthetic likeness to the acousmatic tradition.

Many young composers settle into this landscape (of sound…) and their work is of such interest to us, it would be a shame not to let them be heard. We shall first mention the California-based V. V. (real name Ven Voisey), who organises his found sounds into an architecture reminescent of “old school” musique concrète—doing so, he uncovers a previously unheard aesthetic affinity between Schaeffer and Merzbow… With Relisten, Austrian composer Bernhard Gal guides us through his carefully selected episodes of “found musics” (that is, musical structures that preexist within the environment.) Finally, because of its numerous ideas and its incredible pacing, the surprising flume ridge.halifax.lisbon (2001) from Montréal composer Cal Crawford will undoubtedly seduce listeners looking for unheard acousmatic grounds.

Two small treats to end with. First, the pretty Aenviron: one mini-CDR is a simple thread of five pure field recordings (with no processing!). After all, if there is such a thing as cinema for the ear, why shouldn’t there be a photo album for the ear! And to close the loop, may we also suggest to make a stop at Lionel Marchetti’s recent mini-CD with the evocative title, Train de nuit (Noord 3-683) (1998-99). This work for one loudspeaker, dedicated (couldn’t you guess?) to Pierre Schaeffer, remind us again of the ever renewed importance of environmental sources in feeding the electroacoustic ocean.

Hildegard Westerkamp launched her new album on the Earsay label. Developed over a 10-year period, Into India is based on sounds recorded during her travels in India in the 1990’s. Also availbale: Vector Alpha by Trionys.

A new CD by canadian composer Hildegard Westerkamp will be launched at the Western Front (Vancouver) on November 1, 2002. Developed over a 10-year period, Into India is based on sounds recorded during her travels in India in the 1990’s. Soon available on electrocd.com!

The Transparent Tape Music Festival will be held in Berkeley (USA) on January 11 and 12, 2002. In conjunction with the Transparent Theater and the ACME Observatory, The New San Francisco Tape Music Center will present a total of 17 works, diffused on a 16-loudspeaker system designed for this event. Compositions by Javier Álvarez, Yves Daoust, John Oswald, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Denis Smalley — released by empreintes DIGITALes — are amongst the programmed works.