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One comes from sculpture, the other from acousmatics; the former is dedicated to exploring the inaudible phenomena of nature, the latter the unheard-of phenomena of sound. What Jana Winderen and Natasha Barrett have in common is their use of field recording as unparalleled storytellers.
Jana WInderen's ocean of sound
Norwegian-born Jana Winderen (b. 1965) originally intended to devote herself to sculpture. With this in mind, after studying science (mathematics, chemistry, biochemistry and fish ecology) in Oslo, she left to gain her art degree at London's prestigious Goldsmiths College. But very soon, she no longer wanted to create objects: concerned about minimizing her carbon footprint, this daughter and granddaughter of convinced ecologists had no desire to clutter up the world any further, but rather to "work with this immaterial material that is sound", as she explained last May for Forbes. Of course, she hasn't stopped producing objects altogether: her CDs, like those of Chris Watson, are published by the British label Touch, a breeding ground - along with its Austrian alter ego, Editions Mego - for patent field recordists. But at least the sound travels: "One of the reasons for working with sound is that it allows you to reach a wider audience. I produce small objects, but with them I can reach a lot of people. For me, it's important to be able to tell you the story, so that you can tell it in turn...".
The narrative dimension is essential in the way Jana Winderen composes her pieces, be they records or sound installations. This, too, brings her closer to her elder colleague Chris Watson, with whom she has collaborated on several projects in the past, and with whom she shares the common trait of having made field recording the exclusive material of her work - and "environmental" field recording in particular. Environmental, in the sense that both are primarily concerned with capturing the sounds of the biosphere, in natural environments rarely frequented by man, if not almost inaccessible.
In the case of Jana Winderen, who has been fascinated by the ocean since childhood, these spaces are first and foremost those of the seabed. Invisible topographies, worlds inaudible to the common ear, hidden from view. And so it is that the Norwegian has, by dint of criss-crossing the globe, become a master of the hydrophone, which she is able to submerge to a depth of 90 meters. The story she is keen to tell is the not-so-happy one of the Anthropocene, and the growing fragility of the marine ecosystem; the devastation caused, for example, by noise pollution from the ever-increasing number of boats plying the seas... But rather than denounce, Jana Winderen's main concern is to create. After much research, study and documentation. She trained in marine biology so as to be able to dialogue with the scientists who help her prepare her expeditions (expeditions which, in turn, sometimes contribute to advancing research on certain species). To the point of being able to distinguish the sound of a crab from that of a pistol shrimp - to quote two specimens of decapods, that species of crustaceans with five pairs of legs, generally scavengers, whose mysterious world inspired her first album, The Noisiest Guys Ont The Planet, released in 2009.
From the North Pole to Ghana, from the waters of the Orne to those of Panama, you can listen on her website to recordings of the "field trips" she carries out with the latest equipment: trips that are generally solitary, often adventurous, and which she describes as "a solitary process of intense concentration, constantly listening to what's going on and moving according to what I hear". To Ed Benndorf and Tobias Fisher, she spoke of it as"a physical experience, climbing a glacier, being on a boat in the dark of night, awake while most people are asleep...". Field recording has to do with waiting, the passage of time and our readiness to surrender to it.
Beyond the seas, Jana Winderen is generally interested in hidden worlds. At the bottom of a crevasse or an anthill, under the ice pack or the bark of a tree, in the mountains or in the forest, she likes to track down sounds beyond the reach of the ear, and is fond of inaccessible places where, unable to see the origin of the sound, she records blind. Invisible but audible worlds. Listening to the way she spatializes listening in her records - including the extraordinary Evaporation (2014) and Cloître (2017, a live duet with electronic musician Thomas Köner) - or in her immersive installations (as it were), arranging her field recordings in a series of layers, from the broadest to the narrowest spectrum, reminds us that Jana Winderen originally intended to devote herself to sculpture...
Natasha Barrett's space counterpoint
In contrast to Jana Winderen's "environmental" pieces by British artist Natasha Barrett, we often hear human presences. Which is not to say, on the contrary, that we lose our bearings any less. Also living in Norway, where she settled over 20 years ago, Natasha Barrett (b. 1972) divides her work equally between composition and concerts, sound installations (sometimes monumental) and music for image, dance or theater. Her background, however, is entirely different, coming as it does from acousmatic music, which she studied in London and Birmingham - she was a multiple winner of the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition in the 1990s, among others. And her work extends far beyond field recording, encompassing acoustic, mixed and purely acousmatic pieces. Not to mention her work as a teacher and performer, as Natasha regularly "broadcasts" live works by other composers.
As with Jana Winderen, it's a question of place and time (the time that must be spent patiently, tirelessly recording, before the miracle suddenly happens). But if the former is more ambient, the latter is more... space. Natasha Barrett's work explores, with rigor and finesse, all the possibilities of spatialized diffusion systems, in particular the Ambisonic device. So much so, in fact, that she has coined the notion of "spatial counterpoint"... Just as much as her colleague, on the other hand, the Brit is fond of stories. She likes to keep listeners on the edge of their seats. Her music is just as narrative, but in an entirely different vein. At once more fictional and more abstract, very cinematic. Michel Chion has spoken of "sound filming" to describe sound recording; she often uses the term "sound exposure" to describe her pieces. In any case, there's a touch of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick in Innermost, the barely 20-minute piece she has just released on a CD shared with her elder sister Beatriz Ferreyra.)
Here, as is often the case with her work, it begins in a figurative, naturalistic way, with voices, the sounds of crowds or groups, often also the atmosphere of a Norwegian beach, laughter and games. Then, gradually and imperceptibly, the contours are altered, dilated and twisted, the field recordings become malleable matter, and it's as if we're entering another dimension - which is naturally only amplified by the spatialization of the sound (even with headphones, the effect is striking). Natasha Barrett's music is haunted by many spirits and ghosts. By echoes of other music, and sometimes even rhythms. Dark and eerie to the point of being reminiscent at times of her post-industrial compatriots Coil... Natasha Barrett's work is a singular case of disturbing strangeness.
The same qualities - behind quasi-Gothic accents, an ultimately "Ferrarian" poetry - can be found on disc 2 of his album Peat+Polymer (2014), devoted entirely to field recording, which presents pieces or soundwalks recorded between Peru, Norway and China :
Her fascinating Microclimates series is based on field recordings made during long stays in different parts of western Norway, with each source simultaneously picked up by three microphones (one near, one far, one in the middle). The landscapes here are like abysses, seeming to come alive, splitting into two in our ears and even in front of our eyes... When they are not superimposed, as on Subliminal Throwback released last June, in which Natasha Barrett mixes sound recordings made in winter and summer. Like Microclimates, this work exists as both aninstallation and a sound piece. The album itself features three versions, including two recordings of the installation operating in situ. The composer's intention is clearly stated: "to manoeuvre our 'listening' so that we can 'hear'...".
David Sanson
