stopGOstop: field recordings, sound collage, and sound art

After an unintended 5 month hiatus, the stopGOstop podcast is back with episode 159. Evanston or Midwest in Midwinter or I don’t understand Mark Rothko is a 14-minute composition featuring field recordings of walking in the snow, a brass quintet, sine waves, and a positive attitude.

Episode 158 of the podcast features four field recordings from a weekend out and about (August 21 and 22, 2021). On Saturday, I rode my bike downtown to record outside the Phillies v Padres baseball game. Then, while I was downtown, I walked through the outdoor restaurants/bars in the Gaslamp Quarter. On Sunday, while on the way back from lunch (we are installing a new show at the museum, better to work than worry) I recorded a Brazilian drumline practicing near the World Beat Center, then recorded walking through vendors the Plaza de Balbo. The recordings are collaged slightly.

I have been thinking a bit about electronic voice phenomenon (EVP), clairvoyance, and ways of hearing outside of the normal lately. This is partially influenced by the book Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, written in 1901. In short, the book explores the visual manifestations of thoughts and the notion that they exist as objects. In parallel to these occult practices, I have been thinking about outer space (again). Specifically, on the ISS, there is no silence but a constant hum of fans and motors. So I set up four fans, turned my radio between stations, and recorded for about a half-hour. Out of that recording I created episode 157 and other forms is in between– one part artificial hum of spacecraft, one part thought made into sound (with lots of EQ and just a touch of reverb)

A binaural recording of a walk from the San Diego County Admin Building to my apartment in Golden Hill. The recording is about an hour.

Can we revisit our past and change it?  Jerome wakes up in Omaha, thinking about Jaws, and the summer of 2003. Then, a reporter recounts her experience at an anti-war protest, followed by Jerome talking a bit about the Utah Jazz, Lebron James, and how to make a proper scrambled egg. Summertime features the voice talents of Anna Clark, Brian Taylor, and John Wanzel. The program is written, composed, and produced by John Wanzel.

A walk in the park, slow notes on a pipe organ, an occasional drumroll, and a plane overhead. Episode 155 is a respite between ISW episodes 5 and 6. Tune in next week for the final episode of the Idaho Street Workshop, Summertime.

Where do history and memory intersect? Episode five features long sections of fan-fiction involving Ann Rutledge and Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as more information about the end of the relationship between Jerome and Regina.. Honest features the voice talents of Anna Clark, Brian Taylor, and John Wanzel. The program is written, composed, and produced by John Wanzel.

A walk on the beach, a slow evolving melody, and computer-generated instruments. Episode 154 is an interlude between ISW episodes 4 and 5. As part of its inaugural season of the Idaho Street Workshop, the stopGOstop podcast is releasing parallel projects for each episode.

How do past, present, and future change when a loved one dies? Episode four is the story of Remy. It takes place in the forest, and involves the CIA, stress positions, Labor Day, the highway, and an undiscovered country.. The Story of Remy features the voice talents of Anna Clark, Brian Taylor, and John Wanzel. The program is written, composed, and produced by John Wanzel.

As part of its inaugural season of the Idaho Street Workshop, the stopGOstop podcast is releasing parallel projects for each episode. Episode 153 is a character study of Jerome, who is the lens that most of the story is told through. It features the sounds of traffic, riding public transportation, crickets, as well as computer-based guitars, synthesizers, and pipe organs.

Have you ever thought about how your job has changed your sense of self? In this episode, Jerome recounts his first job, and how he got the nickname Rome.. SEX DRUGS ROCK THE DEVIL features the voice talents of Anna Clark, Brian Taylor, and John Wanzel. The program is written, composed, and produced by John Wanzel.

A new sound collage featuring the beginnings of the Iraq war, existential-phenomenological foundations for a science of persons, with tuba, xylophone, clarinet, flute, pulsing feedback, and a field recording of the French countryside recorded in the summer of 2003. . As part of its inaugural season of the Idaho Street Workshop, the podcast will be releasing parallel projects for each episode. This episode was supposed to be released on Tuesday, but I forgot.

What fills in the voids of memory? In episode 2, Jerome interviews Regina about Nick’s death. A discussion about movies and secrets is interspersed with stage directions and the WHO’s report on the global burden of disease. The program concludes with an interview with Tamara. Night Moves features the voice talents of Anna Clark, Brian Taylor, and John Wanzel. The program is written, composed, and produced by John Wanzel.

A sound collage featuring: advanced microphone techniques, more about atomic clocks and culture jamming, Channing Philips, ALCO, Carl Jung, and much more. As part of its inaugural season of the Idaho Street Workshop, the podcast will be releasing parallel projects for each episode.

What do you remember more, the death of a friend or the death of thousands? The series begins with an interview recounting the summer of 2003 and the death of Nick. The episode then traces Jerome’s family history in the armed forces, the start of the Iraq war, the beginning of Covid-19, and gun violence in Chicago. As part of the first season of the Idaho Street Workshop I am posting the episodes here on the stopGOstop feed.

It starts with an announcement. Episode 150 continues with a sound collage featuring: bike safety, atomic clocks, basketball, the Chicago Style, a bit of chaos, GPS, and featuring synthetic piano, slowed down typing, low notes, and much much more! For more information about my new project please visit idahostreetworkshop.com

A transformation/remix of how do you think i began in the world, an album I released in April 2020. In the wolrd rearranges and revoices about of a quarter of the orginal elements of the piece. I have also added bits and pieces of audio from the rehearsal launch of Apollo One. If you would like to support the podcast, please think about purchasing the album via bandcamp. Use code PODCAST at check out for 50% off. Also, if you would like a free copy of the album, please email me at john(dot)wanzel(at)gmail.com and I will send you a free code.

Episode 148 is an audio collage featuring recordings concerning translation, domestication, the Mandelbrot set and with a (computer generated) guitar, bass, piano and trumpet accompaniment.

Sometimes at lunch, I hear the organist practicing at the Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park. The organ is “the world’s largest outdoor instrument,” and has “more than 5,000 pipes” that are usually used to play a variety of show tunes and standard classical fare. Episode 147 is an incantation to the great instrument, that has been underused these last months. Its pipes not adored by listeners, its tunes heard mostly by trees, buildings, and birds.

This episode features a stereo recording of working in the yard and slow meditative synths.

It starts with a flurry, a quickening, eventually slowing down. The strumming and pecking in the background start to become more pronounced as the anxieties lessen. The beat stops, and the feedback envelops. In the distance a melody is present, but the foreground disguises it. Sounds of a being back in public emerge, and the simple melody may have become a little out of tune. Episode 145 of the podcast features a manipulated recording of a guitar, several midi interments, and a binaural field recording.

In mid-August, I spent about a week camping. The majority of the time I was at Mancos State Park. There was a no-burn order for the entire state, so most nights I would sit and read and write until my solar-powered lights grew dim, listen to music via my phone while watching the stars appear in the sky, and I also would sit, drink a beer, and listen to the sounds of the park. My campsite was about two miles from the edge of the Arapaho Forest, about ten miles from Mesa Verde National Park, and an hour in the car from Durango, CO. There are two main aspects of this piece, a stereo recording from just outside my tent, and a series of midi files. The title is from one of the reviews of the campsites, a very apt description. In the recording, you can hear the zipping of the tent, me walking away, opening a beer, the talking, coughing, of the family at the next campsite, pickup trucks slowly driving by, as well as the choir of crickets, cicadas, and other nighttime creatures waking up. The midi files were derived from bits of text I wrote while camping. The voice recording of the text was converted to midi files via a free online tool, and then edited and transformed to use with a variety of virtual instruments (flute, tuba, harp, piano, and a Viking synth emulation). The original audio was also used to trigger midi notes using the voices threshold to open/close a midi note. This was all a very complicated way of creating a random, but a purposeful instrumental accompaniment to the sounds of camping at Mancos State Park (I might even call the musical sections sonification of text, that that just sounds too clever/academic). If you liked episode 144 you may also enjoy these past episodes: Episode 124: While Line FeverThe sounds and feelings of driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving, while the mind wanders. Episode 093: Field NotesA collage of binaural and stereo field recordings: a walk in Mount Vernon, NY; a recording from my backyard as I trim a few trees; a recording alongside the a man-made lake near Highway 44 in suburban St. Louis; a recording of a walk back to work after lunch; among others. The tones are made through using a tone gate on the recordings, so when the wind creates a bit of mic noise, it is joined by tones and cords. Episode 012: Central Park, SnowA binaural field recording of walking in Central Park after a snow storm. I start at the edge of the park, so there is some traffic noise. Once I enter the park there are horses, families playing, people talking and eventually me walking in Strawberry Fields covered in 8 inches of snow. It was a windy day, so there is some wind noise.

The launch of Apollo 6, government stimulus, Angela Davis, colonies on Mars, Malcolm X, explorations of outer space, 1968, futurists, and a remix of suite I, Mars, from The Planets, Op.32, by Gustav Holst. The seven suites of Holst’s The Planets were first played together in September of 1918, during a worldwide pandemic. Time goes slow, is the second in a series of audio collages that look back at the past 102 years, exploring the parallels and contradictions between science and culture.

Cosmic Background Radiation, Lenard Bernstein, Angela Davis, IBM Control Programs, Malcom X, DIY synth construction, 1968, James Baldwin and a remix of suite IV Jupiter, from The Planets, Op.32, by Gustav Holst. The seven suites of Holst’s The Planets were first played together in September of 1918, during a worldwide pandemic. You know what you want, is the first in a series of audio collages that look back at the past 102 years, exploring the parallels and contradictions between science and culture.

The Structure of the Earth (part two of two) a new composition for speakers or headphones.

The Structure of the Earth (part one of two) a new composition for speakers or headphones.

New patterns! Spies! Alcohol! Orson Welles! Food! Mars! and much! much! more! stopGOstop is proud to present, The New Vegetable; or all of New Jersey is an Inferno, a new sound collage.

The economy! The economy! The economy! stopGOstop is proud to present Inventive Genius a new sound collage.

Robots made from human cells! Tap dancing! World War 2! Gossip Girl! Hockey! and much! much! more! stopGOstop presents, Warm, like a live rabbit, a new sound collage.

The piece centers on the repetitive nature of daily life, and even when the world is fragmented, seemingly destroyed, there is hope that it can be repaired, and restored. Based on “The Sow took the Measles” a folk song from colonial New England. The original verse tells of Yankee practical idealism, of making good out of a bad situation. Featuring field recordings, synthesized instruments, and digital signal manipulation. This is part one and an interlude of an album of the same name. Please visit my bandcamp page to purchase the entire album. how do you think i began in the world by John Wanzel

As the world slides sideways, episode 135 of the podcast focuses on a collage of closeup and foley recordings, with occasional accompaniment by computer synthesized contrabass and tuba. The recordings include: opening a can of seltzer, pouring water, semi-rhythmic rubbing and tapping glass and cardboard, opening kitchen cabinet doors, futzing with a tape measure and cordless drill.

In an experiment on the Moon, Apollo 15 Commander David Scott, dropped a geological hammer and a falcon feather simultaneously*. I can’t imagine Galileo ever considered that his thought experiment would be realized, or maybe that’s what he was thinking about in the fall of 1609 when was looking at the moon through his telescope and created, in watercolor, the first realistic depictions of the moon in human history*. Episode 134 of the podcast features recordings from the moon (Apollo/NASA), recordings from earth (boat ride, coffee shop, and driving on a highway), sounds made on my computer (a Roland TR-606 drum machine emulation, and a computer assisted composition: flute, clarinet, and piano).

A low rumble. A repetitive flute and then piano — moving slowly up and down, finding a path in through the dark night — the two play at the same time, not really together. A strumming rises and falls on the left. The tune is never playful, never mournful, not quit even, looking for its way. A held note, hoping to be propelled forward. Are those voices, is it a crowd? The harmonic shift keeps it from resolving. The nervous energy, the pace quickens, but somehow a moment of calm within the noise. The piano returns, still going up and down, spinning it’s wheels, changing keys, but not finding a way. Its ‘friend’ the flute returns as well…. No hope to find its way, the struggle is heard.

The big bang, 1950’s dating advice, what it means to be popular, the death of capitalism, and much! much! more! — a new sound collage.

An old song on a computer generated piano; a theme from a 1950’s instructional video; miscellaneous bits, clicks and static; unintelligible voices; a river; a slow bell. This episode continues to collage together samples and sounds as an accompaniment to a melody based on the folk songs, this episode features The Avondale Mine Disaster. http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/131-Before-they-would-return-again.mp3 Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via this link RSS, or search for wanzel in itunes. If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy:111: Mid-WinterThe dull edge, the slow night, the stoical tones, the long breath. In the middle of winter a new composition for computer-controlled sine waves and field recordings. 093: Field NotesA collage of binaural and stereo field recordings: a walk in Mount Vernon, NY; a recording from my backyard as I trim a few trees; a recording alongside the a man-made lake near Highway 44 in suburban St. Louis; a recording of a walk back to work after lunch; among others. The tones are made through using a tone gate on the recordings, so when the wind creates a bit of mic noise, it is joined by tones and cords. 107: Santa Monica PiersA binaural field recording — a walk on the beach; under the pier; a few hundred yards and back again; up to the pier; watching the bumper cars, the roller coasters; a woman sings I’ve already made it. stopGOstop is produced by John Wanzel.

An old song on a computer generated piano; field and foley recordings; miscellaneous bits and pieces of digital sounds; a sine waves; the ocean; a train. Episode 130 of the podcast re-edits past episodes as an accompaniment to collaged piano based on the folk song The Housewife’s Lament.

The Golden Record! Gravity! Cassette tape navigation! Sound waves! old voicemails! hair care advice! Proper care for vinyl record! and more! stopGOstop presents Does the Golden Record have a high quality inner sleeve?, a new sound collage.

After the destination has been set, after the engines have cut off, as the computers go into hibernation, you are in the void, the vast nothing. Space is big, mind-bogglingly big its…. nothing to do but wait. Episode 128, The Float, is part two of a multi-episode journey from Earth to the beyond, featuring field recordings, miscellaneous NASA sounds, and a few digital instruments.

Part one of an odyssey from Earth to the beyond. The episode starts with a pre-launch check, liftoff, the melody of space flight, and continues with the sounds you thought you left behind, or are they memories, maybe you just need more vitamin B….what is it like to dream in space… does weightlessness effect the unconscious mind… No Praeterita! Ad Posterum! Ad Astra!  

A new composition for headphones featuring a field recording near the end of the Kitchen Mesa trail (Ghost Ranch, NM), slow midi-controlled tones, and percussive sounds made with an small Amazon box.

Episode 125 is a new sound collage featuring Gregory Peck, Richard Feynman, a manipulated recording of mowing the grass with a hand mower, a binaural recording of the Hillcrest Farmers Market (San Diego) and the scientific method. http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/125.mp3 stopGOstop is produced by John Wanzel. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via this link RSS, or search for wanzel in itunes, or any other podcast machine! Follow me on twitter or instagram @JohnWanzel If you enjoyed this episode, I would suggest also listening to… 122: The Forest: http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/122.mp3 A slow circular conversation, a binaural recording of a walk in Long Island City, Queens, and a quintet of midi-based instruments 082: We will no not what will succeed: http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/we_will_no_not.mp3 An audio collage of a 1988 interview with Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Arthur C. Clark, along side the 2017 media availability of Bill Belichick, accompanied by synthesizer.  

This week on the podcast, the sounds and feelings of driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving, while the mind wanders.

The history and environmental impacts of cement, mind-blowing theories about the universe, atomic testing at Bikini Atoll, the Chernobyl disaster, and much much more! stopGOstop is proud to present Another exiting prospect, a new sound collage.

A slow circular conversation that occasionally paraphrases Shakespeare and Chekhov, to create a lamentation to work, aging and trying to talk to those around you. Featuring a binaural recording of a walk in Long Island City, Queens, and a quintet of midi-based instruments. Is it a metal block, a helicopter overhead, the ocean flows in our veins, a single leaf without context, the hushed sounds of people talking, time travel is real, I am standing beside you, who are you? You breathe in, you breathe out, a long slow tone.

A twenty-five minute binaural recording of a walk from Grand Central Terminal to Times Square. I was originally going to end the episode standing above Max Neuhaus: Times Square located between 45th and 46th in Midtown Manhattan, but it was the summer solstice, so they were doing yoga throughout the area. The specific grate that the piece radiates out from was covered with AV road cases.

A ten minute binaural recording standing under the Cross County Parkway, with traffic singing above, a few cars passing in front, a sneeze, and the occasional sound of pages turning (I was reading Motherhood by Sheila Heti during the recording).

A binaural recording of a walk from Cross County Mall to our house in Mount Vernon. An hour long walk through lower Westchester County, in the suburbs of New York City where my wife and I have lived for the last four years. I refereed to it as the Cross Country Mall in the recording… a verbal mistake I have made over and over again. A quick note: the next couple of episodes of the pod are going to focus on field recordings in the NYC region. A sort of tribute to the 13 years I have lived here as I get ready to move to San Diego later this summer.

Episode 118 starts with a two minute recording of the Atlantic Ocean moves underground to the One train, traveling south in Manhattan, it continues with a recording of a desk chair being moved back and forth on linoleum, then the sounds of a resting steam engine, with an uptempo piano, and a slow and steady synth… a sixteen minute collage of synthesized sounds along side field and foley recordings, about motion, man-made and otherwise. An extended version of this episode aired on July 21, 2019 as episode #683 of the Framework radio program. Please visit their website for the recording and more info.

A new composition for headphones featuring field and foley recordings, counting and computer-based polyphonic synthesization.

My thoughts aim west, combining a field recording made on the Los Angles Public Transportation’s Expo Line, with a new composition for computer generated piano, and small midi instrument ensemble. For download, here is the score for part one of the composition.