Frédéric Nogray - Sunset Soundrise FLAC album

There is more happening on the release by Frederic Nogray, who recorded his work at the Centro de Investigacion y Jardin Botanico Lancetilla (in Honduras) during the sunset from 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm on 25 August 2012, and with a bit of edits we have hear a near eighty minute release. We hear the animals of the night going away and the animals of the day wake up. Maybe it could have been edited a bit more but essentially this is a composition in itself. From the simple crackles and chirping like insects at the beginning more and more sounds are added - out of nowhere? not really of course - and the high pitched singing of insects make a loud buzzing and ringing choir at the end. Not so quiet in the end, but quite a narrative I thought.

Frans De Waard - Vital Weekly 862

"We walked for a long time on the slope of a hill in the rainforest to find a good spot to record the sounds of the wildlife at sunset. Because of the tropical heat and the weight of my recording equipment in my backpack, climbing was not so easy. We found a site to install my microphones in an interesting soundscape, not too near the top of the slope where there were not enough trees to deaden the sounds of human activities all around, and not too close to the stream below.

The people in charge of the botanical garden had told me in this location I could witness an abundance of animal life at sunset. This precise moment the diurnal animals are looking for their last meal before rest while the nocturnal wildlife are waking up little by little as the sun disappears...

I thought tropical forests were always full of sounds from animals, however in this location - and some others - I discovered that it was possible to experiment with deep quietness. In these near silent places, each sound - every piece of information - comes to us in more and more detail as minutes and hours pass. This composition is an attempt to share this particular way to deal with time."

Sunset Soundrise belongs to a series of dreamlike sonic compositions from field recordings in the wild by the Caribbean Sea, on the North Coast of Honduras during two travels there in 2012.

All sounds used here were field recorded on 25 August 2012, in the rainforest near Centro de Investigación y Jardín Botánico Lancetilla during sunset from 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. Then they have simply been assembled, softly edited and mastered at Studio No*Mad in Paris in October and November 2012.

Thank you very much Don Vindel and Ingeniro Luis Bejerano at Centro de Investigación y Jardín Botánico Lancetilla, Tony Whitehead, with very special thanks to Marcella Perdomo and AETA Audio System.

The cover image is a picture from the “Andara Painting” series by Frédéric Nogray.

Inside cover text by Frédéric Nogray

Frederic Nogray’s Sunset Soundrise falls into the rainforest field recordings category. I was intrigued when I read on the press release that during the process of installing his equipment in the particular location where he wanted to record, Frederic discovered that it was a possible experiment with deep quietness.

Where there is sound, there is time. Time changes and sounds move along with it and with them changes the light, the colors, the humidity, the heat, the smell of the soil and the flowers. The microphone records, alone, witnessing the gradual emergence of the sounds of the nocturnal life where the sound of dead fruit falling from the trees coexists with the thick net of insects and bugs that breathes incessantly. I am tempted to believe that this exotic setting is natural and real but it actually is a shortened version of a longer recording taken in a rainforest during sunset between 4:30pm to 6:30pm, at this precise moment where the day gives way to the night. Nogray writes “In these near silent places, each sound – every piece of information – comes to us in more and more detail as minutes and hours pass. This composition is an attempt to share this particular way to deal with time”. I have already agreed with him on the temporal side of his intent but let me explain, I don’t find these places near silent, not at all. They are busy, ceaselessly evolving into complex repetitive patterns that my ears gradually adjust to. They don’t intrude immediately like the sound of an ambulance but they accumulate in my head, they circulate inside my body and become bigger and perhaps less natural, almost like the sound of broken cables and electric circuitry. The hour passes and I listen to the growing sounds inhabiting the privacy of my space and turning its calculated edges to rounded echoing chambers recalling my room in Brighton and how it was transformed when I first listened to Jean Claude Risset’s Sud. Not quite quiet though. I don’t want to sound as if I am de-exoticizing the quietness of the rainforest.

On the contrary, the minuteness of its sounds made me realise that I have been living in cities for many years and that my idea of the quiet perhaps has changed. Once, I tried to revisit the sound of a night owl that used to sing non-stop when we spent our summers out in the village. Back then I thought that this was the only sound the night would make, a sense of calmness and quietness framed by the distant song of the bird. When I went back many years later I discovered that what I was left with was a fictionalised rendition of a past fragmented memory. In that respect, I understand Nogray’s notion of dreamlike sonic compositions and that’s how I want to remember Sunset Soundrise; as a recording that made me think and realise.

Maria Papadomanolaki - The Field Reporter