Mixtapes

Mixtape #60 : Field Recording

by 5:4
written by 5:4 7 minutes read

A little over a year ago, my spring mixtape reflected the growing state of the world by having Virus as its theme. Shortly after that, as lockdown kicked in, i switched from a quarterly to a weekly sequence of Isolation Mixtapes, supplemented with the Outside-In series exploring field recordings from around the world. Now, at time of writing, lockdown has just ended here in the UK, so to reflect something of the joy i’m sure pretty much all of us here feel at being able to get out and about properly again, for the new 5:4 mixtape i’m returning to the world of field recording. In general, i’ve avoided typically acousmatic music in favour of tracks that engage more directly with the details of the sound itself, rather than seeking to weave it into something larger. The results tend to veer between poles of recognition, sometimes instantly identifiable, sometimes marvellously abstract – occasionally simultaneously.

After such a miserable time throughout 2020 and the first few months of this year, i regard this new mixtape – and this is how it felt as i was creating it – as a tribute to, and a revelling in, the epic diversity of noise in the outside world, from the tiniest, most easily missable sounds to unavoidably in-your-face crashes and smashes. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before all of us around the world can be experiencing these sounds for real again. Meanwhile, here are two hours of tracks that ruminate, meditate, manipulate and celebrate field recordings in a variety of wondrous forms.

The tracklisting in full is shown below, together with approximate timings and links to obtain the music.

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