Shane Turner

DISCONTACT! II, cd #2

1. [2] Sarah Peebles - Nocturnal Premonitions - 2'18"

This piece has a "tribal" feel to it, evoked by the use of hand drums, pieces of metal and nature sounds. During the middle of the piece, we hear a steady rhythm in the background, accompanied by what sounds like frogs and then animals. After a brief spatter of percussion, the rhythmic background disappears, leaving us with the sound of waves rolling in on a beach, and the gritty sound of the water against the sand. The piece flows from beginning to end without repetition in its structure, but still feels tied together by the use of percussion throughout the piece.

2. [4] E. C. Woodley - Abide With Me (New York No. 1) - 2'42"

This piece has a general narrative structure, the subject of which is a sonic tour of Herald Square. The listener is presented with a complex mix of sound sources throughout the majority of the piece-the footsteps and voices of the crowd and the hum of traffic. The piece keeps the listener's attention by mixing individual incidents overtop of this structure, such as the metallic rustle of a cart, the voice of a man on a megaphone, and people singing. Eventually the piece takes the listener out of the crowd, into the traffic, consisting of the sounds of squeaky brakes, engines, and horns. The piece settles into this structure for a few seconds, then is interrupted by the bells in the clock tower. As the bells ring, the ambience of the city dies away, and the piece ends.

3. [6] Mara Zibens - Siquppalavuk/It Sounds Like Breaking - 2'40"

The theme of this piece is noise pollution on Inuit lands. The beginning immediately evokes the feel of space through the use of a delay/echo effect. Several times we hear mechanical banging sounds which may symbolize the theme of the piece. As we enter about a minute into the piece, new sounds creep in over the first sound. We hear drums beating, and the voice of a woman speaking in Inuit, and her translator. Their voices end, leaving only the original sound. The piece seems to have an ABA structure, with a similar beginning and ending, and vocal and percussive material used in the middle.

4. [25] Francisco López - El mundo depués de la invasión de los zorápteros - 2'40"

This piece consists of a single, drawn-out shape, which I found interesting because it seems to have an impenetrable and mysterious atmosphere. We are immediately presented with what seems to be several layers of noisy sound covering a wide frequency range, heavily reverberated. A deep rumbling is layered with what sounds like a windy gale. The rest of the piece focuses on the shaping of this "wall of sound", and creeping other sounds in and out of the background. Around 40 seconds into the piece, tonal sounds fade in and out, but are kept quiet enough to make singling them out difficult. After another 40 seconds, the frequency range narrows into the midrange. The volume drops, leaving only a fragment of the original windy sound. A piercing noise around 1kHz fades in and out a couple times, which may be the windy sound being passed through an equalizer. As the piece expands in frequency again, we are presented for the first time with barely tangible sounds, consisting of banging and crashing in the background. As the piece ends, we hear heavily reverberated scraping in the distance.