The Many & True Approaches, Baltic Ozones 1 & 2 and notes about process and a new poem or two on the eve of a Ceasefire

          "I felt that I had been broken /like a diamond and that nothing of light remained of me" 

                       -- Mahmoud Darwish 

 

 

  https://soundcloud.com/jeff-gburek/the-many-true-approaches

 originally I had the title as "all manner of potential approaches" -- perhaps for the album title -- then something shifted -- out of the unseen there came a suggestion of an alternative --

   Created in the field on January 14th using bespoke VLF radio receivers, Tecsun multiband radio, Baofeng transciever & Hack RF 4M keyed with Cubic SDR software which adds a special range of articulation in bandwidth. Sources are radio carrier waves, so there's instability, unpredictability into the mix, keeps the improvisation on the go. The ensemble en suite. Hopefully you are listening already.

After coming back from the work in the field at Lake Rusalka, the poem emerged and I had a sudden flash of wonder whether or not it could be the first poem ever to reference field recordings or the kind of devices I use while getting out into bringing the plasmosphere into ear-shot... here it goes...

Space weather recording

More pingy than swoop

Snow crunch in headphones

Better mind my step

Through my ears

Cupped in these containers

Muffling the nor'wester

As the falsely positive snow

Starts to tinkle as rain

On partially iced lake

Ionosphere ticks

Variable molecular clocks

In the overall ageless sky

Still lustrous grey hinged

Layers overlapping into horizon

Red branched bush

I forgot to Google lens

Also forgot y-splitter cable

So onto VLF coms reciever

One unusual squiggly beacon

Squiggly signal striate like bacon

Funny how language works

Out accidental parallels

Or simply occult coherencies

Remain objectively insignificant

And could this wind up a poem

I wonder why there are no limits

Yet, aye, the plasmosphere

Begs to differ gasseously

Exigous in patches

This caul and veil of interlacing

atoms sharing electrons like

Soldiers do cigarettes in trenches

In the old movies anyway

This crocheted vaporous array

Shielding life from cindering sun

And galactic ultra wind

A frail protective veil in effect

Reminds me my own fingers

Are beginning to numb

Holding onto these dear

Devices of sound induction

Nakedly withdrawn

Back into gloves

Packing up quickly

Trudging over frozen mud

Back to bus stop

And boom, dynamite perhaps

Road works, blast in earth

Disturbance and chainsaws

Of kurwa cursing loggers

I wish they'd assume their role

As sacred functionaries, nurses,

As executioners of the woods

And hack more solemnly

 

 

Attempting to do inner environmentalism, I guess. 

Environ-mental-ism. 

 Onward to the Baltic coast, near Koszalin -- a village area called Łazy, to be more precise, where I was able to record some relatively complex configurations of microphones on the shores on a sunny but not overly blustery day. As always, when on location, I do some radio captures, so this first compostion brings the seas and the ether waves into some equilibrium-seeking drama... Some location photos to follow and intercalate with the other track links

 

https://soundcloud.com/jeff-gburek/baltic-ozones-i

 

 

 

 

 

Quick note from my Facebook post:

 Field recordings of the Baltic coast, radio from Marine UHF, Shortwave (all recorded coastally on Dec 24/25, 2024) and synthesizer added early today during the live mix. This edition in memory of Miguel A. Garcia, who's recent passing haunts my listening at this time.

 

 

 

 

 https://soundcloud.com/jeff-gburek/baltic-ozones-2-ripples

 

It finished itself quickly today. Enjoy Baltic Ozones part 2 aka Ripples

 

 

 

 

 "Shall I believe in ripples as well as the sea? --that is, the ripplehood of ripples?  Let me explain why life is but a ripple or ripples of one

unrippled and unrippleable essence"  -- Jack Kerouac

On New Year's Eve fulcrum swing I and Karolina recorded our first ever electro-noise tracks and some minimal techno miniatures that will go up as an album somewhere soon. I'll keep you posted. I will leave you, whoever has gotten this far, with Tajallih, a work I realized for no-input EQ pedal and synthesizer as a kind of sallah looking toward the ceasefire horizon in Gaza. The acrylic painting came just before by a day.  https://soundcloud.com/jeff-gburek/tajalli