I don't exactly have a "proper" blog just yet with comments and all that fancy-pants stuff, so please send any comments or questions via email! I would love to hear from you!

My goodness, how time flies. In my last post over a year ago, I had all these glorious plans! Ah sigh, life has a way of happening doesn't it? I will someday get For a Loop out for download and the 5.1 Influx/Transmission Lines release wrapped up (if you'd like a copy of either prior to official release, a simple CD-R or DVD-R can be sent your way at minimal cost - just email me!), but for now, I'm focusing on getting my feet back into the earth that is my sound art practice. I've been away for too long! It's time to get out and record again!

I've been tossing around a lot of questions lately. Is there a way to make the work performative as opposed to prerecorded? If I want to exhibit, what kind of gear should I get? Where can I learn more about the history and contemporary theories around sound art? I can't say that I've answered the former two questions, but I have begun to investigate the latter. I've found that books address my interests so-so, but that what I really want is a great journal and/or blog! Bite-sized chunks seem to fare better in my tight schedule. Luckily, I found a whole bunch of resources.

Time to share (in no particular order):

• Sensate
• Journal of Sonic Studies
• Ear Room
• Phonography
• EMF Institute
• Leonardo
• Organised Sound (this one requires database access or a subscription, but it is AWESOME)

That's all for now, but there's more where that came from, I'm sure! Will add to to this list as I find cool things!

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2.10.2012 | 2:53 PM EST

The past few months have seen several new works come together, most notably For a Loop, a forty-minute follow up to Cloud Chases Cloud and a new shorter piece entitled Transmission Lines. The former will be released and available for download within the next few weeks. The latter I am going to surround mix and pair with the equally ominous and thrumming Influx and finally get to a long-due 5.1 release with that!

I feel as though these new pieces really mark out a milestone for my work. Transmission Lines is a ferocious and roaring ode to the droning rumble. It captures a feeling I cannot describe with words.

I'm still gathering my wits about For a Loop. I've been listening to it in stereo for a few weeks now, but hearing it fresh as a surround mix for the first time today was exhilarating. This piece feels to me like the most polished and accessible of the sound art I have made to date. I'm really looking forward to putting it out into the world and getting some reactions!

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12.12.2010 | 10:15 PM EST

As a child, I spent many afternoons with a friend, sitting in front of a box fan, singing my heart out. The box fan was an integral part of the performance - we were re-enacting the scene in Disney's The Little Mermaid, where the foolish, seashell-bedecked heroine trades her lovely voice for a pair of legs and a chance to woo her prince. In true Disney musical fashion, we sang and sang; we must have driven our parents insane (or perhaps our small and off-key voices were drowned out by the aforementioned box fan).

Thus began a long-standing interest in household items and whirring motors as musical instruments. In the previous case, it was the distortion created by singing into the spinning fan blades that I found so appealing. Later, I turned my attention to the vacuum cleaner, the garbage disposal, the neighbor's lawnmower, the sound of my father's van idling in the street - if it produced a steady droning tone, pitch, or rumble (or a series of them), I could drift away on that sound--hear the song in the machine--and sing my own harmonies in response.

I recount these experiences because today, I returned to that peculiar pastime, quite accidentally. I was struggling to pin down a sound piece in the studio. The components were there - bits of field recordings processed and cleaned up and laid out like so many puzzle pieces. But the life was missing - that is, until I started to absentmindedly hum a harmony part. Ding, ding, ding. Lightbulb on. Queue up the reverb and slap together a makeshift recording studio. In a sound collage, who really cares if the bathroom door being slammed makes it into the work?

Of course, now the question is what exactly should I do with this piece? Out of the many things I have made as a sound artist, there's only one other (neglected, might I add) piece in my collection that features voice this prominently ("For Longing", should you be curious). I tend to shy away from melody and voice in what I do because... Well, it steals the show. Just like we naturally spot faces pretty much everywhere (rocks, clouds, textured ceiling tiles, etc.), our faculties are pretty good at casting bright light on the voice. Not only that, but "For Longing" and the new piece, which I am tentatively entitling "Underpass", are both much more musical and melodic than anything else I have done. I had always planned on releasing "For Longing" under some other moniker and could do the same with "Underpass", but thinking about the way that I have always been informed and inspired by the harmonic qualities of many of the weird noises I encounter on a daily basis, maybe there's room after all for the voice and a touch of musicality.

It's a work in progress, but here it is - "Underpass" by Forms of Air:

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5.15.2010 | 9:00 PM EDT

I've finally begun surround mixing Cloud Chases Cloud. It's a peculiar thing, to set aside a piece of work and return to it months later (which is to say, I'm rusty). I've got the first bit of tinkering done, but listening to the first full run on my home theater system brought out the flaws in the design. I'll need to take meticulous notes on this one to get it just right. Toss that rumbling backward, move that certain shimmer to the right for five seconds, bump the volume just there, etc.

It's just as well. I've got a lot of work to do on the 5.1 album art. I have booklets to produce and cover art to adapt!

In the meantime, lunch at a pizzeria with a whirling cacophony of Troy street noise bouncing off faux marble tiles sounded great on the recorder. I also managed to snag the deep bass twang of a flag pole rope plucked by the wind. Nasty wind rumble and all, I am curious to see what will happen with that in the studio.

It's the wee hours. I suppose sleep would be the most appropriate response.

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4.09.2010 | 1:25 AM EDT

FormsofAir.com finally has a fresh new look! (Err, actually it has the new improved version of the old look - which was seriously clunky.) Now that I have the site up and running properly, expect to see more (and more interesting) news/blog updates!

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3.23.2010 | 9:57 PM EDT

Cloud Chases Cloud is now available for purchase in CD format and as a digital download.

A meditation on the intersection between memory, dream, and reality, the album was built around the idea of reinterpreting the sounds of summertime. Field recordings of windchimes tinkling in the breeze, box fans whirring against humid air, and distant rumbles of thunder form a core of sounds which were manipulated and layered digitally to form a series of interconnected experimental sound collages.

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11.19.2009

Work on Cloud Chases Cloud is drawing to close! Stay tuned for details about this forthcoming release!

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11.9.2009

On Tuesday, October 13th, from 8-10 PM, I will be a performing with other participants at the Communal Drone Night hosted by the Arts Center and the Albany Sonic Arts Collective.

Come to the performance as a listener, or bring your own noisemaker/instrument and join in! The event is at the Arts Center in downtown Troy.

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10.7.2009

Locality_14802, is now available for download on CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, and many other digital retailers! A reflection of my experience in the village of Alfred, NY, this five track debut draws on drones, rattles, clicks, whooshes, and whirs collected in and around the village.

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9.15.2009