Souvenirs - 22/7/19

After a year of producing my podcast 'Field Trips', I found myself with over four hours of material of varying quality. I can't reasonably expect anyone to listen to all of that, so this album is meant as a "best of" compilation - my favourite recordings from the series.

Whereas previous projects of mine have been more thematically consistent with a pre-planned concept to work from, with this album I instead adopted a more curatorial mindset, the results of which I found quite interesting. There's no overarching theme here, but I do recognise an aesthetic continuity or "style" in the recordings I've selected. It's not something I had previously been consciously aware of, but I seem to gravitate to crowded places with a more explicitly musical element to them, or otherwise I enjoy quieter places by the water. There's also less emphasis on ambiences and more of a focus on scenes, events, happenings, etc. - moments with a bit more of a narrative to follow.

The main benefit to this process is that the recordings haven't been in any way restricted or forced by any concept: Taking my album Dochuki for comparison, while hiking along the Tokaido road I would sometimes not find anything of interest to record but still had to make a recording for the sake of thematic consistency (one track for each post-station on the road), but sometimes I also came across several interesting sounds/capes in the same area but had to pick only one for the same reason. As a result I have mixed thoughts on that album: On the one hand it contains some of my best recordings, on the other hand there are some dull segments. I don't feel the same way about this album - The recordings may be arbitrary, but what I hope is that a higher standard is maintained throughout in regards to both technical quality as well as substance.