Infrasound, or frequencies of sound that exist beyond the range of human hearing, are omnipresent but cannot be heard, nor recorded using traditional equipment. Captured over a period of 24 hours in Amherst, Massachusetts (coincidentally, a town adjacent to mine, and that I drive through multiple times per week), Brian House captured infrasound via custom built macrophones, speeding the recordings up 60 times to render them into the range of human hearing. The outcome is an expansive, at times terrifying, pair of compositions that are as sonically enjoyable as they are scientifically fascinating.
With the sides split between day and night, the differences are audible dependent on the time of recording. The day side (6AM through 6PM) leads in with silence that is soon blended with distant, heavy rumbling and other low frequency, submerged like sounds. Slow passages of sound whiff over like clouds, offsetting unconventional echoing sounds. Through the 24 minutes of the piece, House captures higher frequency tones, indistinct rattling, and guttural textures. The overall structure is a consistent one, however, even with all of these disparate layers mixed with a strong compositional structure.
The night side is comparably more active in comparison. With a ghostly opening, sputtering noise and buoyant tones enter the mix. The piece is busier, but also more unsettling when compared to metaphorical light of day. The moments during the day that drifted more towards silence are filled with more aggressive outbursts and shrill segments that sound like nothing we would perceive as naturally occurring.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this album is how these otherwise unheard sounds are interpreted (for me, at least) into familiar touchstones that are obviously not represented. For example, I could hear subtle musical tones and sounds that were quite similar to chirping birds weaved throughout the day side of the record. On the night side, there were ghostly chimes, revving engines, and monster movie-like roars amidst the ambience.
While technically falling under the genre of field recordings, the source material recorded by Brian House and the means in which it was captured results in something entirely different. I am not sure how much processing was employed by House beyond the time compression, but no matter what, just the knowledge of these being sounds that exist every day just a few miles from me makes it all the more captivating. Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World is interesting from a conceptual and academic perspective, but the results presented are just as engaging from a purely audial standpoint as well.
Listen here.
