Jana Winderen: Energy Field (Touch)

Jana Winderen is a sound artist working with environmental field recordings. Energy Field consists entirely of recordings she made in the Barents Sea, Norway and Greenland, with a focus on water life above and below the surface. Her work tempts comparison to fellow Touch sound recordist Chris Watson, but Winderen’s agenda seems more sublime even. With generous use of high-end parabolic microphones as well as hydrophones, she’s captured an entire world of sound that human beings just aren’t equipped to normally hear. The resuts are sometimes startling considering there’s very little (if any) processing on these recordings other than mixing them together. Sometimes it consists of glimmering drones while at other times it bubbles (literally) with activity. Glaciers and fjords creak in subtle movement while creatures call out to one another. The latter phenomena are most obviously heard on the first movement, “Aquaculture,” while my favorite is the droning “Sense of Latent Power.” You can practically see the light reflecting far up on the surface and feel yourself submerged within its nebulous atmosphere. This sort of thing is certainly not for everyone, but Winderen’s knack for capturing the subtleties of nature and amplifying them for us is formidable and fascinating.

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