biophonic assemblages: Recent Episodes
firefly frequencies
Biophonic Assemblages invites people to share their "natural" landscapes, wherever they are. Recordings of urban noises, forest sounds, wind, water, earth movements, animal cries, volcanoes, rain, leaves, sound-walks through different habitats and territories that can be broadcast through radio as animistic felt presences.
Partly inspired by the ideas and practices of field recordist and bio-acoustician Bernie Krause and of sound recordist and musician Chris Watson, as well as the research of Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway, Thom van Dooren among others, one can consider (and forge) multiple linkages, relations and alliances between the sounds of different "species" beginning from the acts of recording. It is often said that a recorder is a tool for learning to listen without a recorder, for developing an attentiveness to hybrid communities of "voices" and their intermodulation.
Biophonic Assemblages is also an invitation to think of recording, editing and mixing as part of an inter-species event that take place between the non-organic and the organic, the machinic and the natural, the animal and the cyborg, weaving together multi-dimensional sonic fabrics.
"Twilight" is an extract from Martina Testen and Simon Šerc's field recording project "Nokturno", giving us an aural glimpse into the rich lifeworlds of animals and guiding us through the mysterious soundscapes of the nocturnal world. The recordings were gathered over a period of ten years, during which the authors spent countless nights in the forest.
Divided into eight chapters – Sunset, Twilight, Dusk, Nightfall, Midnight, After Midnight, Predawn, and Dawn – the album traces a natural arc from the fading light of day to the awakening chorus of morning. From twilight frogs and nocturnal beetles to the haunting calls of owls, the roar of stags, and the distant howls of wolves, the album reveals the hidden symphony of the night.
Beyond sound alone, Nokturno invites reflection on the inner lives of animals - creatures that think, feel, and navigate their world with subtle intelligence. It is an intimate, immersive celebration of nocturnal realm, a journey into the fragile ecosystems that sustain life under the veil of darkness.
Immersive and atmospheric, "Nokturno" captures the beauty, mystery, and fragility of nocturnal life. It is both a celebration of nature’s hidden orchestra and a reminder of the importance of protecting the habitats where these sounds still resonate.
Image from the film In Search of UIQ (Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson, 2013)
Écologies de la brousse – Aadaajii laɗɗe (2024 - ongoing)
Started in 2021, "Écologies de la brousse – Aadaajii laɗɗe" is a non-linear project of photographic, textual (Katia Golovko) and sound (Cristian Adamo) exploration of termite mounds and the savannah environments of northern Senegal.
These are conceived as metaphors for synergy, complexity, and symbiosis in the more-than-human environment, and as a search for alternative paths to the inherent violence of capitalism.
Termite mounds are living monuments, self-contained ecosystems, straddling the visible and invisible, serving as refuges for both living and non-living inhabitants of the savannah, and as examples of cosmic conviviality.
This audio track was initially made for Katia Golovko's installation "Écologies de la brousse – Aadaajii laɗɗe" on the occasion of "Branching Streams - Sketches of Kinship’"exhibition in May - September 2024 in Dakar. The recordings included in this composition were made between late December 2023 and early January 2024 on the Île à Morphil, in the department of Podor, Senegal. Panoramic microphones, Geophone and radio tuner on different frequency bands were used for these recordings.
Installation: Katia Golovko
Recording and editing: Cristian Adamo
Mastering: Giuseppe Ielasi
Read more about the project here
An aeolian sound art project, listening to the landscape and the spirit of the times. With the words of Virgile Abela, "Single, serial or multiple synesthetic experiences, they all take up the vibrations of the air transforming them into the music of the wind .The instruments and the environment work together, plunging our perception of reality into a meditative, vibratory fiction. A holistic invitation to inhabit the landscape differently.
(Horizons-Sancy Festival)
Thank you Virgile!
https://www.virgileabela.com/
A spring walk around and through a house that sits on the drop edge of yonder whose soundworld we are only beginning to discover.
A trip through the Tunis Medina, dissolving from Dar Meso’s secret garden to the voices of the Kasbah, from the trance sounds of Stambeli to a whispered poem from Gaza.
Field recordings and editing: Graeme Thomson & Silvia Maglioni
Mixing and treatments: Graeme Thomson
Many thanks to Ali, Nicène, Salah, Emel and all the artists at Dar Meso
SOUND ASLEEP creates a safe space for different species of animals to sleep together: a puddle frog, a cat, a brown bear, a lion, a southern seal, a crow, a family of elephants and a dog.
MONTAGE AND MIX: Silvia Maglioni
A big thank you to Bernhard Günter and Chris Watson.
In the second episode of her Sud Sound Secrets Alessandra Pomarico shares with you a voice of Adriatic salty waves hissing and splashing, agitated yet calming, strong and stormy, magic and sublime. The secret narrow stairway сarved directly into the limestone massif and leads directly to the water where this song was given to Alessandra will remain secret.
This is the sonic portrait of a mixed forest that grows on a limestone cliffs somewhat seven meters above the sea somewhere in the south of the Apennine Peninsula.
This recording was made in a secret place at Tiputini Biodiversity Station located in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The place is used by different animals to get some minerals and then other animals use it to hunt them. The location is very special because it's full of animals and activity. In the recording there are some frogs, crickets, a lot of insects, including two or three flying insects or unidentified animals surrounding the microphones very close.
Mikel R Nieto
One raw recording made in the Amazon rainforest (Ecuador) recorded the night of 24th September, 2014. Mastered at “H Studio” in Berlin during winter 2018.
mikelrnieto.net
A piece based on field recordings and music made in March 2019 in Hanoï and in the Gam Troy Valley.
Recorded and composed by Ravi Shardja
https://soundcloud.com/ravi-shardja
February 2021: Mt. Etna (Sicily) erupts with great magnitude. A sound map of the area around the volcano where birdsong and sheep bells cross paths in the shadow of its seismic tremor.
Field recordings, composition and mix: Graeme Thomson
Recordings of birdsong from the Garajonay Forest, La Gomera (one of the last surviving areas of Laurisilva, dating from several million years ago) converse with the sounds of electronic “mirrorbirds”, in homage to Farid ud-Din Attar’s “Conference of the Birds”.
Field recordings: Silvia Maglioni
Electronics and mix: Graeme Thomson