U59 | Banks Bailey | Mountains and Waters
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format : Glass mastered CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
Packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert and additional art card on 350gr matt laminated paper.
release year : 2019
length : 46’21
track : Mountains and Waters
status : still available
>>> order via Paypal : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
(Belgium) : 14 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 15 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 16 € (inc.postage)
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: info :
“Mountains and Waters” is an elegy to the Holocene epoch and to the quiet places that have been lost. The Holocene reaches back some 11,700 years when the last of the glacial cycles began to fade and the planet began to warm again. Since that time as we know, humans have dominated the landscape leaving very few places unchanged in some aspect. There is still debate as to when the Anthropocene began among the scientific community and no official epoch has been established. The recordings are from locations where a backpack and several days at least were needed in order to reach most of them. Of course no place is free of anthropogenic sound with air traffic what it is today but these places have retained their habitat to a certain degree due to setting aside these lands from future development. I hope we can continue to preserve these quiet places as the Anthropocene moves through these unsettled waters.
(Banks Bailey, 10 July 2018)
: reviews :
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Lovely handmade music from Brussels, always crisp, always stirring the norm a bit. This is also my introduction to the work of Banks Bailey who has released many works over the last decade (and his second on Unfathomless). This singular work runs about forty-six minutes and is full of deep vision, minimalistic and cinematic. As he presents in the photographic work for the packaging (as a photographer) I can relate to the intricate macro-state of the nature he is capturing with eye and ear. The stillness of nature, its majesty and gentle corrosion.
It’s a record of preservation and of memory. These field recordings are complex, the type of sounds you may only observe with great patience and stillness. He recorded these sounds in various locations including: Crater Lake National Park and Three Sisters Wilderness Area in Oregon (both of which I have visited, and photographed, and are awe-inspiring places), Arches National Park in Utah, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, Sagurao National Park and the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. There is no trace of humans, per se, here – save for the oscillations accompanying this keepsake, almost clinically scientific sound specimens. Though the result is gauzy, warm, almost as if he’s managed to capture the sound of barely changing light conditions.
Between the recognizable are tonal waves with glowing pitch that lead back to intermediate bird calls and trickling waters. By mid-point this transitions into something more meditative, transcending the listener’s present sense of place. Bailey must have been exploring some higher altitudes in his capture here, there are some unique calls and tweets that sound more like a Brazilian rainforest than a national park in the US, but then again, there are always paths less explored, and he most certainly goes there.
There is this heavenly and quite intimate intersection between electronics and the natural environment that at times reminds me of the magical inverse of early ambient work by someone like Andrew Lagowski. The subtlety is exceptional. The gentle whir of wind and presumably the artist’s breath begin to slow at one point, perhaps inferring the human condition of exhaustion during the process of climbing just as a crow cawing is introduced. This is where things take a turn, almost arctic in nature, as though a frozen surface is slowly being broken. This along with a submerged blur puts you in a limbo in terms of where you may be, likely in a dreamstate.
As gentle waters lap to shore and seabirds communicate we are close to dry land once again, but the soft watery caress continues to glisten with a dreamy ambient glow. .
TJ Norris
Toneshift
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So far Banks Bailey has delivered a very few very interesting albums, mixing together fieldrecordings with Tibetan bowls, flutes and electronics. The last album I heard from him was ‘The Pool’ (Vital Weekly 1111) and that one was also released by Unfathomless and it seemed to be dealing with just field recordings. For this new CD, he went in search of very quiet places that were formed during the Holocene era, almost 12.000 years ago. These places he found in Oregon, Utah, Alaska and Arizona. It was the era of the last glacial cycles and since then men have walked the earth, and we speak of an Anthropocene era. Bailey writes that these days no place is completely cut off from human presence and an aeroplane overhead is always there, but in the forty-five minutes of ‘Mountain And Waters‘ he captures some tranquil moments that, however, are, obviously, not silent. I would think the work is divided into two main sections; the first section, roughly the first half of the piece has some beautiful drone-like sounds; I was thinking: where in nature do you find these? Or is there perhaps some sort of electronic treatment applied here? I have no idea. But I do know it sounds really good; very contemplative with the occasional bird sound. In the second half, we retreat to a more natural sound approach, with again some sort of drone sound, but more remotely present, while the natural elements, bird, wood, maybe a riverbank, provide a fine bed of contemplative sounds. If the first half has a sense of being locked up, then this part is more looking out over a wide-open space. Just like last week’s release by Ecovillage, this too is like being on holiday (a very Anthropocene activity, I guess, but then so is taking a recording device into the mountains) and on a hot day like today, escaping the house is all I would want; out into the open air on a some faraway mountain..
Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly
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Two new Unfathomless releases bring listeners to the deep forest, where mysteries beckon and surprises lie around every corner. Each CD opens windows to the past by presenting the sounds that might have been heard in prior centuries.
Mountains and Waters is the more intentional of the two,”an elegy to the Holocene epoch and to the quiet places that have been lost.” In order to capture these calm recordings, Banks Bailey backpacked deep into the parks and forests of the American west and north, from Arizona to Alaska, as if honoring Gordon Hempton (One Square Inch of Silence). But silence is not what he finds. The album-length piece begins with the sound of a tree falling, symbolizing loss, before opening the sonic field to the animal kingdom. There’s a richness apparent in the open spaces, although from time to time a low-level musical drone can also be heard. Whenever a bird or a group of crickets break their cover, the results are sublime. Bailey seems reluctant even to capture the sound of his own footstep, and seems annoyed when other human sounds intrude, so the choice of drone is unusual, but it does serve to unite disparate locations in a single soundscape. The best moments arrive when pure nature breaks through, as in the 11th minute, with a woodpecker, a stream and local calling birds; and the 38th, as flocks and wolves compete for sonic space..
Richard Allen
A Closer Listen
Unfathomless 