chosen by Pablo Sanz:
1) Wind sounding through the windows of my attic on windy nights. Also the seagulls in the canal downstairs waking me up some days in the morning. (Den Haag, NL)
2) 1st Feb - Keiichiro Shibuya and Takashi Ikegami´s Filmachine installation. Exhibited during Transmediale 2008 (Berlin, DE).
3) 5th Jul - Jacob Kirkegaard´s Labyrinthitis live performance at Funkhaus Nalepasstrase during Tuned City festival (Berlin, DE).
4) 7th Nov - Mark Bain´s Archisonic (Maritime edition) live performance at the boat MS Stubnitz in Amsterdam (NL).
5) 30th Dec - The amplified sound of a faulty escalator heard at night during a field recording session at Chamartin train station. (Madrid, ES).
chosen by Pali Meursault:
1) A vine arbour in of Nodar, amplifying the wind and rumor of the valley through contact microphones.
2) The unexpected feedback in the 50 headphones of the audience during the soundcheck before a dance performance in Grenoble.
3) The undescribable drony rumbling coming out of a chinese speaking-clock while its batteries were dying.
4) A. tuning his throat singing to the engine of the bus while traveling in Chartreuse.
5) Vibrating magnets bought out-of-the-bag to an indian seller in a Paris café, producing a random insect-like metallic crackle.
chosen by Paulo Raposo (sirr records):
some personal tastings:
# Éliane Radigue, L´île re-sonante (CD released by Shiin)
# Alfredo Costa Monteiro, live performance
# Architecture and acoustic space of the national pantheon in lisbon in the project "book of hours" conceived with joâo Silva and using glass sounds moving and diffused through the space of the 80m dome
# Wind sounds at Serra do Caldeirão in Portugal and forest sounds at Kursiu Nerija National Park on the coast of Lithuania while starting to develop the ambar project with maksim shenteliev and john grzinich
# Mascavado 2008, produced by Grain of Sound and Sirr featuring delicate performances by Axel Dorner, Ko Ishikawa, Taku Unami, Masahiko Okura, Klaus Filip and N Moita.
chosen by Matt Davies (Bristol):
Here is my top five in no particular order:
1) Max Eastley's Kinetic Drawings at Bracknell Art Centre.
2) Humpback whales bubble netting on 'World on the Move' (29th July 2008).
3) Clifton Suspense Bridge, Bristol UK.
4) A red wing black bird singing to my skylight window as i was editing some bird song recordings.
5) The piano i recently rescued from the streets, which was about to be scrapped and has been outside in the wind and rain for several weeks.
chosen by Richard Skelton:
1) March 7th. A nameless bird's refrain, heard from Grange Brow, near the village of Belmont, Lancashire.
2) April 6th. The blanket of snow above Moses Cocker's farm, Lancashire, amplifying the sound of lapwings, tumbling and diving.
3) June 15th. The baptismal Yarrow on Anglezarke moor, and what the river said.
4) October 5th. The quiet darkness of Bun An Cnoic, Co. Galway, Ireland.
5) November 30th. A girl softly singing and playing guitar in the early morning.
chosen by Colleen:
1) Mozart :
I was convinced I didn’t really like Mozart until I started hearing Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida’s recordings of the piano sonatas, especially the slow movements : this is one of the most beautiful musics I’ve ever heard, so delicate it feels that dew drops, and not a human being, are behind it. Try the adagio of Sonata in F, KV 280/189e .
2) Sephardic songs :
I found out about the existence of Sephardic music this year with a CD by Françoise Atlan, Sephardic song, from the rose to the jasmine, which includes a wonderfully sad and moving lullaby called « Durme querido hijico ». Since then I’ve been trying to find out more of this incredible music that mixes such different influences.
3) Tams :
This year I was invited to write and perform a piece for the Présences Electronique festival organised by the GRM at the Maison de la Radio in Paris. They are very generous as they give you full access to the instrument storage room of the Orchestre National de France, a basement room within the building where they keep all sorts of instruments, including dozens of harps, vibraphones, celesta, and other instruments you rarely see in such large numbers. I chose three very large tams (I started calling them « gongs », but was told the real word was « tams ») and when I hit the first one, I just couldn’t believe the powerful beauty of that sound. The only way I can describe it is : the universe opening up in front of you – a really cosmic sound, and one that definitely can’t be recorded in a way that will do justice to the feeling you have when the tam is reverberating all around you.
4) Snow falling in japan :
My second tour of Japan started in mid-january, and on the first morning, awakening in the cold room of the badly-heated but beautiful old ryokan where I was staying, the most beautiful surprise awaited me : snow falling thickly over the roofs and streets, snow thicker than I had seen for a long long time, and which made a soft, muffled sound, that made the perfect unexpected introduction to a trip that proved to be wonderful.
5) My cat snoring :
because he sleeps with half of his nose buried in the duvet, he starts making this wheezy, irregular sound, and it’s a comical yet soothing and tender sound that makes me really happy to be there, in the warmth of a bedroom, with this strange furry creature dreaming beside me and leading his carefree life.
chosen by Ivan Palacky:
1) Psst – the sound of Mattoni mineral water in a loosely capped plastic bottle.
2) A newly discovered, really deep sound of my amplified knitting machine.
3) The sound of a steam outlet in the infection department of a children hospital in Brno.
4) The sound of a 2 meter long piece of a plywood fastened to the roof of a car going in the speed of 80 km/h
5) The Epiphone AJ-500 RC 12-fret guitar
chosen by Richard Pinnell (Cathnor):
here are five nice sounds from this year then, in no particular order:
1) Being whistled a lullaby by Antoine Beuger until I fell asleep, Glasgow, February.
2) The blend of Mark Wastell, John Butcher and torrential London rain, ResonanceFM studios, the last audition show.
3) The sound made by Dublin pedestrian crossings. A great sound that reminds me I am visiting Dublin, which is always a good thing.
4) London Sinfonietta's remarkable use of the Royal Festival Hall to perform Luigi Nono's Prometeo in May.
5) The quiet ticking of suspended strip heaters being naturally amplified around the incredibly resonant space that is St Mark's church in Angel, London, November.
chosen by Helena Gough:
1. automatic writing by Robert Ashley
2. Esther Venrooy @ de witte zaal, Gent, july 2008
3. porridge cooking
4. the massed sparrows of Berlin
5. the 'tiktiktiktikwhooomph' of my gas heater switching on
chosen by John Grzinich:
'2008 was full of explorations, collaborations and experiments and thereare certainly too many sounds for me to describe. I will restrict thislist to my personal creations, but I also heard some good performances, CDreleases and natural sound phenomenon'
- click on purple titles to hear -
1) "Old telegraph lines" in Southeast Estonia: I finally got to attach contact mics directly to the wires
2) The "sound walk" as part of the Sound as Space/Sound as Languageworkshop in August in Riga
3) Discovering the "water harp" while working in a river in Portugal. Itsso simple yet so amazing
4) "Junk in my backyard": kinetic collections of objects affected bynatural forces (wind, rain, snow)
5) "What is the sound of 21st century folk music?", enlightening andthoroughly enjoyable workshop with a great group of people I did at thebeginning of the year
chosen by Matt Sansom:
1) Helicopter starting engine, warming up and taking off
2) 'O nata lux' (Tallis) sung from one of the balconies at Kings Place, London
3) Stereo coil pick-up recording of AGFA photocopier
4) Dawn call to prayer heard from the deluxe suite of the Kariye Hotel, Istanbul
5) All distant drones: planes, helicopters, lawn mowers, street cleaners, boilers, air-con, traffic, fans, dehumidifiers, electrical hums etc. etc.
chosen by Maksims Shentelevs:
1) wind drone of electric supply wires. Recorded in Estonia. On the side of the countryside road. Its a special place discovered by John Grzinich.One wooden pole has shifted out of its base and only due to electric wires it still stays in its very unstable position. Instead of supporting wires it hangs increasing tension. It was windy night. Sound was intense and very variable. Recording was made with piezos, but sound was acoustically present due to resonation in massive pole. We recorded one hour of nice drone.
2) Steel wire in forest mountains of Topolo, Italy. Very clear sound of branches hitting wire. Sound travels inside wire causing sharp shots. I had long recording sessions with several piezos and mixer. I discovered very different types of sounds inside the wire. Sources of most still remain mistery to me. Very different structures of clusters and single punctual sounds. Sample is accessible on blog.
3) Small stones recorded with hydrophone in shallow stream in Perruel, France. Tiny stones and sand grain were swirling in constant turbulent motion behind large stone in the middle of the stream. I placed hydrophone just behind the stone and was completely captured by hypnotic rhythm – very constant but fragile at the same time. Almost casual structure of tiny crackings, rustlings and scrapings made its structure very lightweight and literally breathing with very clear and accentuated sounds.
4) Thunder recorded in Topolo, Italy from Morenos’ terrace (which has especcially nice wiev of low alp mountains). Basically 20 minutes of rain, starting with first heavy drops, intensive thunder rumbling (special of Topolo – as one of the most rainy places in Europe). Raindrops on roof tiles and leafs of the hillside tries, in the end of course – birds. Seems nothing special, but I found myself playng this record a lot afterwards.
5) Waves recorded at night on the seaside of Neringa, Lithuania. Place is very special itself for its outstending patterns of Baltic nature. It was very calm autumn night – no wind at all, warm air flowing from the sea. Sound of waves was very clear. In my experience its a rare occasion of intensive waves in calm weather.
chosen by Simon Whetham:
1) the island of ko kradan, Thailand, at night
2) Michael Moser's installation in a water tower in Berlin
3) the extraction fan of the spray booth at limbs & things, bristol, when not in use
4) Ernest truely performing human branding at the art container, Tallinn, Estonia
5) Bev sleeping
'all heard in situ - a tough task to narrow down five and i wouldn't know where to begin with recorded work!!'
chosen by Lucio Capece:
1) The “Devils Throat”, main fall at Iguazu Falls. Iguazu, Argentina. January.
2) My son Lennard ( 2,5 years old) imitating Nelly Omar. ( 97 years old tango singer).
3) A very low sound played by Kevin Drumm in Gent, Quartet concert. May.
4) Christian Kesten´s (singer) countertenor like singing. Duo concert in Berlin. August.
5) A very low sound produced by my bass clarinet with a 1,50 cardboard tube in the bell, in one specific corner of my practicing room.
chosen by Mark Wright (listed in no particular order):
1) Jackdaws conversational yaps as they circled Fountains Abbey in Oct.
2) Ventilation shafts high pitch screams on London’s Southbank.
3) The drawn out oscillating metallic drones within my broken sofa bed.
4) The tin can that rattled down my street last week.
5) Tom Waits’ voice at the Edinburgh Playhouse in July
chosen by Dave Ellis:
1) Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble with a string quartet at this summer's Hull Jazz Festival. Best live gig of the year by far. So good in fact that I really didn't want to hear anything else for quite a while afterwards.
2) Getting back into a warm bed at around 4.00 am recently and drifting off to sleep listening to the distant, melancholy sound of the fog sirens on the River Humber.
3) Imogen Heap singing 'Hide & Seek.' Her song has been around for a while but I only discovered it this year. Moving and humane electronica. I rushed out and bought the CD immediately assuming it would all be equally inspiring. Sadly not, but she's young yet.
4) Nitin Sawhney's Electric Prom with the London Undersound Orchestra. One particularly stunning piece featured Anoushka Shankar on sitar,
it is called 'Charu Keshin Rain'.
5) 'Tango Tarita' is my favourite piece by old mate Paul 'trombone poetry' Taylor. He performed it at the Humber Mouth Festival last June accompanied by drummer Keith Stutt, Peter Elsdon on piano with Gary Hammond on percussion. I wasn't in the band unfortunately, but young Hull bass virtuoso Ollie Hopkins did sterling service throughout and contributed a blinding solo.
chosen by Seth Bennett:
1) Hearing the Pentangle play in the pouring rain atthe Green Man Festival in Wales. I suppose technically that's a collection of sounds, but it was very nice. I was sharing a half litre paper beaker of red wine with Jo Burke and Mary Hampton, and we were all smiling a lot.
2) I played a gig with an improvising band from Leeds called Leeshu, and a pianist called Matthew Bourne, at which there were lots of sounds, but my favourite one came from the piano. I was deep in the middle of it all, with my eyes closed, when I slowly became aware of a strange creaking sound. I looked up to see Matthew standing in front of the piano wrenching it back and forth, making the whole structure creak and groan. It was a very nice sound.
3) I was in Geneva the night of the football Euro 08 final, and was standing on a sixth floor balcony as the final whistle went. It was a warm dry summer's night. We were across the city from where the "fanzone" was, so the sound of all the cheering drifted across the city, and mingled with sounds of celebration closer to where I was. Shouting, Car Horns, "viva espagna" etc. Whatever you think about football, it was great hearing the sounds of rejoicing across the whole city.
4) Walking in the Alps, I came across a herd of Cows. We were on the ridge of the mountain, and there was wind coming over the edge of it. The sound of the wind mixed with the sound of all the cow's bells.
5) The sound of my stove top espresso jug bubbling is a daily joy.
chosen by Lasse-Marc Riek:
1) the first word of my son
2) the first singing birds in early spring
3) the sounds of a epileptic seizure
4) moondog (left channel) johann sebastian bach (right channel)
5) the first snow in december
chosen by Peter Maynard:
1) The sudden wing flutter of a passing bird.
2) The sound when moving air disturbs a draped polythene dust sheet.
3) The sound of a page being turned.
4) I have a Hotpoint RTA41 refrigerator which from time to time makes the sound not that unlike the purring of a contented cat.
5) I had a hearing test recently and the sounds they play to you in order to evaluate any loss were pretty interesting and quite close to that which I would listen to anyway.
chosen by Paul & Kaajal Khimasia Morgan:
1) Birdsong at Entebbe Zoo, on the shore of Lake Victoria, Uganda
2) Our 6 month old nephew singing himself to sleep
3) Mark Wastell (tam tam) & John Butcher (saxophone) at Chisenhale Dance Space in Hackney
4) A Middle Sex (electronics 3 piece) live at The Greenhouse Effect in Hove
5) Alan Tomlinson (trombone), Steve Beresford (electronics) & Roger Turner (drum kit) at Safehouse
chosen by Coryn Smethurst:
1) Car driving with a traffic cone stuck under it
2) Dripping tunnel in Cumbria (recorded)
3) butterflies fighting (recorded)
4) Hoverfly buzzing (landed on windshield) (recorded)
5) Wind through trees - leaves are always beautiful (but painful to record)
chosen by Brian Olewnick:
1) Because I was concentrating unusually hard, Staten Island traffic and other sounds on April 26, for 45 minutes, as my part in the realization of Cage's "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs".
2) Several occasions sitting in a waiting area at Newark Airport, one of my favorite sound environments: large interior space, muffled PA announcements, all manner of hums, dozens of languages being spoken.
3) Recordings of Keith Rowe from the Tokyo Amplify event.
4) Arek Gulbenkoglu/Adam Sussman's untitled Rhizome disc--76 minutes of next to nothing.
5) Rhys Chatham's Guitar Trio--three discs of almost everything.
chosen by Luis Costa (Binaural):
1) Tô – “Le Crock St. Laurent” (“Mandrola Autumn Soundscapes”, Madorla Netlabel 010)
2) Rui Costa – “El viaje de las golondrinas” (“Mandrola Autumn Soundscapes”, Madorla Netlabel 010)
3) Maksims Shentelevs - “16-36” (“Dérives”, Universinternational Ui-CD015)
4) Duncan Whitley - “Demolition” (“The Listening Project”, Slade Studios, London)
5) Manuela Barile - “Nest n8: Abandoned farm. Estonia” (Unreleased)
chosen by Jez riley French:
thought i'd better list some too & then got totally stuck - everyday I hear things that add so much to the simple pleasure of life. So I decided that i'd choose five sounds heard during some of the field trips i've made as part of the 'in place' project in 2008 (not in any order). Making choices outside this self imposed restriction would result in a list of things spoken by my daughter, Pheobe - whose voice is constant music and joy:
1) Thornwick bay inlet with hydrophones, East Yorkshire
2) glass bowl - Kettle's Yard, Cambridge
3) upstairs floor near dancer, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge
4) the danube near a rail bridge, Vienna
5) fallen leaves blown by the wind in the beguinage, Ghent
chosen by Patrick Farmer:
1) The rare sound of the Mandarin ducks at Oakmere park, Potters Bar.
2) Wind through the Pines at Gregynog University, Wales
3) Oxygen escaping through the rocks at the edge of the river bank, Newtown, Wales.
4) Wind through the damaged flagpoles along the pier at Aberystwyth.
5) Max Roach's drum beats on the Bud Powell track 'un poco loco'.
& three more:
6) The Cuckoos at Gobbions wood at 5am, Potters Bar.
7) Various resonances through my snare drum in Glasgow city centre.
8) The wind turbines at Rhyader, Wales.
chosen by Sarah Hughes:
1) The slurping Mallards at Churchstoke market.
2) Dry leaves in the autumn wind.
3) Otters at otter and owl sanctuary in the Peak District.
4) The silence at Ynyslas beach at dawn, Ceredigion
5) Canada goslings at Oakmere park, Potters Bar.
& three more:
6) The ambience at Pangshangar aerodrome, Welwyn Garden City
7) A glass tumbler rubbed against autoharp strings
8) The wind turbines at Rhyader, Wales.
chosen by Scott Sherk (http://www.thethirdbarn.com/):
1) Walking on volcanic pebbles on black beach (Iceland)2) Any sound resonating in the clear, cold air (Iceland)
3) Morning rush hour in the 86th Street 6 Train subway stop (NY, NY)
4) The sound of a distant chainsaw on a hot, humid summer evening (Lehigh Co., PA)
5) The reverb inside the enormous and, mostly, concrete Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral (Reykjavik)
chosen by freesound user daveincamas:
1) tree house during wind storm
2) thunderstorm 200806
3) storm in Oregon rain forest
4) The sound of dozens of Tundra Swans taking off from a lake. They use their feet on the surface of the water to gain momentum. Dozens of pairs of feet slapping the water surface make a very unique sound.
5) On the DVD of the film "Wall-E", there is a special feature called "Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds From the Sound Up". In this 18-minute feature, sound designer Ben Burtt explains how he came up with the sounds for the film and also takes a tour of the Disney archives to look at and play with some of the sound-generating devices that Disney sound designers have used over the years. One of the devices he uses is a hand-cranked radio generator from WWII, which is used in the film when Wall-E is moving slowly in a quiet environment.
chosen by Mathieu Ruhlmann:
1) Sebastien's first word
2) Tranquille, British Columbia
3) Corey crushing hundreds of mouse skulls in owl barn, Barnston Island
4) 'Centre of the Universe', Vidette
5) Singing Stones/Sands, Tofino
chosen by Mark Valentine:
1) the sound of church bells deeply echoed in our stone chimney breast
2) the minute, rippling hiss of the singing sands at Jenny Brown's Point, Silverdale, with that strange sense that minerals might really speak and breathe
3) the calm, calm murmuring of a 19th century Ludgate Hill grandfather clock, like a discreet butler of time
4) Richard Skelton's 'Marking Time'
5) a few rare moments when silence, shade and the fall of light seemed to be on the verge of revealing something else.
chosen by Ben Drew:
1) Ensembles - Otomo Yoshihide Exhibition at Yamaguchi Centre for artsand media, Yamaguchi Japan
2) John Butchers resonant spaces cd on confront
3) Louisa Martin @ the first last lmc festival
4) Michael Colligan @ lmc/arika's Self Cancellation
5) a pacinco hall in Fukuoka japan
chosen by Dale Lloyd (and/oar label):
1) Toru Takemitsu: "Dream Window" soundtrack
2) Puget Sound via water taxi all summer
3) Little Brigitte's angelic voice on Arsenije Jovanović's "Les Vents Du Camargue"
4) The waterbowls of Tomoko Sauvage
5) The soundtracks to "Chariots Of The Gods" and "In Search Of".*
(*ah the 1970s: when loose speculation was still fun and exciting...)
chosen by Julian Skrobek:
1) Michel Henritzi - Nothing (Dyin' Ghost)
2) Éric Cordier - Osorezan (Herbal)
3) Lucio Capece / Sergio Merce - Casa (Organized Music From Thessaloniki)
4) Miguel Prado - Dios aborrece una singularidad desnuda (Free Software Series)
5) Marc Namblard – Chants Of Frozen Lakes (Kalerne)
