earinfluxion

earinfluxion

15 December 2015

Duane
Pitre: Bayou Electric (Important)

Duane
Pitre’s “Bayou Electric” is a stunning 48-minute meditation of
ambience and field recordings. To create the music, Pitre started
with an unadorned field recording of the bayou on his family’s
long-time plot of Lousiana land, a direct and literal linkage to his
Cajun heritage.

The field recording plays through the duration of the
piece (though it fades in from silence quite gradually at first), and
its chorus of insects and wildlife form a shuddering, almost
mechanical cloud of sound around which Pitre then arranged and
recorded his quiet arrangement. For the most part, the sounds herein
are most obviously created by bowed strings, but Pitre fills out the
arrangement ever so subtly with electronics and synths as well.
However, it makes sense, knowing that Pitre built everything around
the field recording itself, that nature is the real star of the show
here. And yet it’s part of the whole, not amplified to extremes or
featured in a way that emphasizes anything in particular compared to
a sound recordist like Chris Watson, whose work generally is about
the nuance and detail of recording elusive or ephemeral sounds of
nature up close and amplified. Instead, “Bayou Electric” feels
patient and meditative, where all of its pieces and parts, whether
captured or performed, complement one another effortlessly. The
gliding strings recall the most sublime work of Stars of the Lid, but
the flavor is something other, feeling somehow more insular and at
peace. Very highly recommended.

Buy it: Important | Boomkat | iTunes | Amazon

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