[96 Kpbs/44.1 Khz/Stereo unless stated]

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02.01.09 - Ost – 14:21 - 192 kpbs

An edited version of the track "Ghost", commissioned as part of "The Space Between Seeing and Knowing is Haunted," an exhibition curated by D–L Alvarez at Exile and Arratia, Beer, Berlin [07.02.2009 – 04.04.2009]. Arranged and produced by Philip Marshall. Voices sourced from "The Ghost Orchid – an Introduction to EVP" [PARC, 1999]. Rain recordings courtesy of Dale Cornish.

09.12.08 - Barbialla – 12:50 - 192 kpbs

How to catch a truffle
 
Ancient Greeks, as much in the dark as anyone else when it came to where the white truffle is to be found, shrugged and announced that the tuber magnatum occurred wherever lightning struck the ground. Cobblers, of course, but that’s the excuse for beginning this piece with a burgeoning thunder storm — in September 2008, on the Barbialla Nuova estate near San Miniato, Tuscany. This is an area famed for its white truffles.
 
Then a truffle hunt, with Imperio, Bobbi and Sabali. Bobbi is a dog, a breed called Lagotto. Imperio is the hunter. Sabali translates Imperio now and again, but most of the time he is chatting to the dog, saying “Find!”, “Is it or isn’t it?” He gets very angry with the cat (“Go home!”) who, feeling sociable, joined us on this three-hour walk. 
 
A truffle is found and Bobbi, having pulled up a 12-inches of earth, doesn't want to surrender it. At least with a dog you can yank him away by the scruff of the neck, and Bobbi was occasionally seen flying over Imperio’s shoulder. Not so easy with pigs, who used to be employed as truffle hunters — but enough of an excuse to include the sounds of Silvio here, the biggest of the farm's Cinta Senese breed.
 
There the tenuous links end, unless anyone knows of a connection between truffles and the crickets, tawny owls and mystery birds that chattered deep in to the night.
 
[Recorded on DPA miniature omni microphones and Sound Devices 702 recorder] 

Pascal has also contributed a truffle recipe to Touch's online Recipe Book.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 37 | Pascal Wyse

18.11.08 - Submarine – 9:12 - 192 kpbs

A submarine-like structure sits on a traffic island in the middle of Akerman Road, London SW9. It was built in the 1970s above the large underground boiler room that provides heat for the Myatt’s Field estates, which lie on either side of the road. The boilers still heat more than 300 buildings to the south of the road, but their unreliability caused the north-side estate to switch to another heating source in the early 1990s. The heating system was sited underground because to do so was considered ‘best practice’ at this stage of the Cold War, when a nuclear conflict sometimes seemed a distinct possibility. At the time the estates were built, both the US and the USSR maintained large fleets of weapon-bearing submarines: ocean-going doubles of the Akerman Road structure. In spring 2008 I made some recordings of the machinery in the boiler room. These have been organised into a composition. I have filtered some of the sounds but no digital processing has been used.

Photography by Dollan Cannell.

Thanks to Stuart Dixon and Lambeth council for letting me in.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 36 | Will Montgomery

1.10.08 - THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA – 28:46 - 192 kpbs

freq_out 7 took place in September 2008 as part of The Happy New Ears Festival in Kortrijk, Belgium. There was also a performance by THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA on Saturday 13th September, which was recorded by Finnbogi Pétursson on a Zoom H2 and mastered by BJNilsen. Crows recorded by Pascal Wyse.

3.09.08 - Elk Song – 11:14 - 192 kpbs

Headphones recommended. Recorded 24/48 with a Rode NT4 stereo mic.

The forests and meadows of Northern Arizona's high country are populated by herds of elk, packs of coyotes and a variety of frogs, owls and other wildlife. Camping out overnight can be an exhilarating acoustic experience - as I found out...

Waking up in my tent just after 1 AM my immediate thought was that I had entered some weird spirit realm and was hearing the wail of a banshee - what turned out to be a bugling elk. The initial recordings were made on 4th September 2007. The main portion of the recording, an ethereal song consisting of a series of explosive elk calls, was made more recently on 10th June 2008.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 34 | Diane Hope

33. 5.08.08 - Without Number - 45:53 - 128 kpbs

Jon Wozencroft writes: "The earliest tape used in this radio show comes from 1982 and the most recent is ten years old. AER is/was a name I gave to sound recordings used for the Touch samplers (in particular) and this is no more than an opportunity to “clear the cupboards” and make the best of them available in one location. None of them benefit from studio production and in the age of easily-available sound recording software, I suppose part of the point is that they are all cassette or minidisk recordings assembled on pre-digital recording equipment."

A full index of the tracks and information can be downloaded here

32. 1.07.08 - Donadea Forest - 30:47 - 192 kpbs

Donadea Forest Recordings, December 2007 to May 2008.

00:00-04:27 Castle Crow's Cacophony (31st December 2007, 7.20am)
04:28-10:23 January Gales 9th January 2008 10.45pm (contains references to 9/11 forest monument and the avenue of trees, captured with contact mics)
10:24-14:48 Forest Rain 12th January 2008 1.15am (extensive flooding)
14:49-20:36 Forest Harmonics 8th March 2008 6.20-11.50am (sampled forest chimes, forestry felling, and the 'carbon chorus' [surrounding motorways]).
20:37-30:47 The Dawn Chorus (recorded on National Dawn Chorus Day 20th May 2008, 4.35am)

Tom Lawrence is a composer/sound recordist. He is on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University. Further details can be found here.

Principal photography by Eddie Mallin from Dublin, currently living in Kildare. Using film-based cameras, he prints using traditional darkroom techniques and favours fibre-based papers. Images for this project are mainly scanned negatives. Monochrome images © Eddie Mallin. For more information, click here.

Supplementary photography captured during recording sessions by Tom Lawrence.

Special thanks to Karen Bothwell, Forest Manager Kildare & E.Laois and all the staff at Coillte Teoranta. For more info on Donadea Forest, click here.

These recordings were made using a Sennheiser mkh20 binaural rig, a Neumann kmr82, contact microphones, a hydrophone, a Sony C1 and a Sound Devices mixer and recorder.

You can read an article from Leinster, Ireland here and a review by John Coutanche here

Continue reading: Touch Radio 32 | Tom Lawrence

01.06.08 - Lifesounds - 23:08 - 96 kbps

1. Lindsay Anderson recorded at the memorial service for Andrei Tarkovsky [1932-1986] at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, London

2. Filming The Garden [Derek Jarman, 1990] at Dungeness, Kent.

3. Mrs. Oyler in conversation with Derek Jarman

4. Brick Lane Man, 1988

Continue reading: Touch Radio 31 | Simon Fisher Turner