i’ve been revisiting the music of Switzerland-based sound artist D’Incise (aka Laurent Peter) lately, and one work in particular i’ve found myself coming back to again and again and again. For many of his releases, Peter gives succinct information elaborating their inspiration and / or production, but for his 2012 piece the fields remain while the recorder has long vanished, his notes are cryptic while conveying real frustration:
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…………………………………………………………..]03-2012Bloody preamps, no windshields, fuck, hours feet in
the water, for almost nothing, time passed, I’m long
gone, the fields remain
That short burst of emotions is all the more interesting – and meaningful – when one considers the nature and content of the fields remain while the recorder has long vanished. It’s a work that’s almost defined more by what isn’t happening than what is. Very deep rumble, vague forms of movement, soft impacts, wafting pitches – all of which are seemingly passive, not deliberate or composed. Yet listen again and this is obviously no field recording – at least, not a single field recording. Do these elements belong together? They likely don’t, this is (of course) a constructed soundworld, but it’s one where these diverse elements nonetheless fit together as complementary strata.
In some ways those sound elements, though no doubt derived from real sources, could just as easily be entirely synthetic, so it’s nice that D’Incise also incorporates faint glimpses of bird song. That could also be synthetic, but in this context it serves to increase the ‘authenticity’ of what we’re hearing. If we had doubts, they’re lessened.
Around four minutes in and things recede further, turn claustrophobic, as if almost everything were being muffled, robbed of their substantive content. But another minute passes and it becomes more active: a drone materialises in the middle of the texture, the bass makes its presence more demonstrably (though subtly) felt, and there are traces of something tiny at the periphery and perhaps larger moving in between. However, equilibrium is maintained.
Yet another minute passes, and abruptly everything in the lower registers vanishes. We’re left with a distant chuntering behind the ongoing drone, struck by infinitesimally light motes. It’s interesting how the work has progressed from an opening period of ostensibly passive idling to this, an episode that feels much more focused yet sonically is literally less active than before. There’s something tantalising about this, reinforced by the most miniscule of impacts, like grains of sand glancing off the microphone. After a couple of minutes, soft notes within the texture become more obvious – were they always there? am i imagining them? i’ve never allowed myself to rewind and discover the truth, and each time i listen they somehow catch me by surprise.
It becomes clear that we’re in transition; a wind-noise-like presence masks the chuntering a little, but the central drone persists, and over time the noise is clarified as a strange cloud of pitched ‘calls’, joined by the fast chittering of something akin to insects. As if signalling an end to the transition, a deep drone underpins everything, holding it in place, and us with it, caught in this hypnotic stasis.
There’s another abrupt cancellation, the opposite of the last one, this time leaving us with low, unobtrusive rumble below sounds of creaking and movement, with occasional muffled voices. This emphasis on obviously real sounds retrospectively makes the previous sequence seem all the more artificial by contrast. Yet in the work’s closing couple of minutes D’Incise projects a potent electronic drone into the centre, slightly buzzy, slightly ominous, an uncanny presence in this otherwise ‘real’ space.
the fields remain while the recorder has long vanished demonstrates powerfully what can be achieved with field recordings when they’re given the opportunity to speak in a way that’s less dramatically manipulated, and where impact is all the more great by its avoidance of literal impacts. It also strikes a beautiful balance between notions of ‘real’ and ‘processed’ sounds, where what seems real can in retrospect appear synthetic, and vice versa. Perhaps it’s all just liminal in this way.
i said the piece was almost defined more by what’s not happening, and the keyword there is ‘almost’. The more i listen to the piece, the more i reflect on it, the more i realise there’s so much happening, all the time, but i think only some of that is in the music, the rest of it is the product of what it triggers and s(t)imulates in my imagination. Either way, the fields remain while the recorder has long vanished is a hugely immersive experience, a world to get very happily lost in. Again and again and again.
Originally released in May 2012, the fields remain while the recorder has long vanished is available as a free download.
