Pond (Digital Only)

Album Review

In the transcribed conversation that makes up the liner notes to this fascinating recording, Tod Dockstader says to his musical partner, David Lee Myers, "It's hard to believe that such transcendent clarity of sound was achieved from such slimy and reluctant and monaural sources." It's a funny but fitting observation on this weird and wonderful sonic kaleidoscope of natural and synthesized noises. Composed in equal parts from field recordings of frogs and singing insects and noises generated by electronic means, Pond is neither a touchy-feely "nature sounds" relaxation tape nor a strictly abstract sound construction, but falls somewhere in between. On "Slow Marsh" there are easily identifiable keyboard sounds, even a bit of melody. But for the most part the musical interest comes not from melodies or rhythms, which are mostly lacking, but from the way that sounds emerge out of empty sonic space and squiggle, mutter, or creep across the aural field, and the way it quickly becomes impossible to know for sure whether what you're hearing is a straight found-sound recording, an altered recording from nature, or a synthesized noise. Whether the results can strictly be called "music" or not doesn't really matter — what does matter is the pleasure to be had in immersing oneself in this sonic world, and that pleasure is significant. Highly recommended.