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BAILEY, BANKS - Mountains and Waters

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Unfathomless U59 Release Year: 2019 Note: recordings from different quiet, untouched places in National Parks in the USA, with the focus of exploring the "Holocene epoch" (11700 years ago before the Anthropocene began), BANKS BAILEY managed to find beautiful 'droning' nature sounds (often it's not really clear what it is) along with the more typical environmental noises you can capture.. filed under: nature immersion sounds Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00 More Info “Mountains and Waters” is an elegy to the Holocene epoch and to the quiet places that have been lost. The Holocene reaches back some 11,700 years when the last of the glacial cycles began to fade and the planet began to warm again. Since that time as we know, humans have dominated the landscape leaving very few places unchanged in some aspect. There is still debate as to when the Anthropocene began among the scientific community and no official epoch has been established. The recordings are from locations where a backpack and several days at least were needed in order to reach most of them. Of course no place is free of anthropogenic sound with air traffic what it is today but these places have retained their habitat to a certain degree due to setting aside these lands from future development. I hope we can continue to preserve these quiet places as the Anthropocene moves through these unsettled waters. LOCATIONS : Crater Lake National Park and Three Sisters Wilderness Area in Oregon, Arches National Park in Utah, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, Sagurao National Park and the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. Sounds captured between 2014 and 2017. Cover design & treatments by Daniel Crokaert. Based exclusively on photos by Banks Bailey. Portrait by Banks Bailey. https://unfathomless.bandcamp.com/album/mountains-and-waters "So far Banks Bailey has delivered a very few very interesting albums, mixing together field recordings with Tibetan bowls, flutes and electronics. The last album I heard from him was 'The Pool' (Vital Weekly 1111) and that one was also released by Unfathomless and it seemed to be dealing with just field recordings. For this new CD, he went in search of very quiet places that were formed during the Holocene era, almost 12.000 years ago. These places he found in Oregon, Utah, Alaska and Arizona. It was the era of the last glacial cycles and since then men have walked the earth, and we speak of an Anthropocene era. Bailey writes that these days no place is completely cut off from human presence and an aeroplane overhead is always there, but in the forty-five minutes of 'Mountain And Views' he captures some tranquil moments that, however, are, obviously, not silent. I would think the work is divided into two main sections; the first section, roughly the first half of the piece has some beautiful drone-like sounds; I was thinking: where in nature do you find these? Or is there perhaps some sort of electronic treatment applied here? I have no idea. But I do know it sounds really good; very contemplative with the occasional bird sound. In the second half, we retreat to a more natural sound approach, with again some sort of drone sound, but more remotely present, while the natural elements, bird, wood, maybe a riverbank, provide a fine bed of contemplative sounds. If the first half has a sense of being locked up, then this part is more looking out over a wide-open space. Just like last week's release by Ecovillage, this too is like being on holiday (a very Anthropocene activity, I guess, but then so is taking a recording device into the mountains) and on a hot day like today, escaping the house is all I would want; out into the open air on a some faraway mountain." [FdW/Vital Weekly]