Music for Your Studio; Vol. 23

A while back, I bought a one dollar cd called "The Sea" (pictured above) at the Salvation Army on a total whim. Over time I've played it far more than I ever expected to. I think the joy is in its simplicity - the entire cd consists of field recordings of the sea. There's no ambient soundscapes or soft beats - just waves, seagulls and shifting sand. I love how unadorned it is.


Today's pick for your studio is a recording of a summer thunderstorm in Washington state. It is related to my gem of a find - "The Sea" and equally simple. I don't know about you, but I love falling asleep while its raining. Can't beat it.

If you've been missing out on some nighttime rain or just want to clear your head- Carl Lierman's recording may be just what you need. His description of the recording says that it is a "Extract of a rainstorm in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. The rain is hitting a pavement roadway and surrounding rooftop, with intermittent rips of thunder. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50, Summer, 2009."

Get the free (and legal) audio here - who knows, this might be your new nighttime reading or sleeping music.

Thunderstorm

Image copyright Nathan Abels - all rights reserved.

Image copyright Nathan Abels - all rights reserved.

I took over a hundred photos from our third floor apartment last night. I was hoping to get some good shots of all the lightning and these two nailed it - look at the way the sky lit up on that second one... That storm was crazy.

An Island for Everything Left

Photo of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone by Nathan Abels

Where We Are

Fog in the morning here
will make some of the world far away
and the near only a hint. But rain
will feel its blind progress along the valley,
tapping to convert one boulder at a time
into a glistening fact. Daylight will
love what came.
Whatever fits will be welcome, whatever
steps back in the fog will disappear
and hardly exist. You hear the river
saying a prayer for all that's gone.

Far over the valley there is an island
for everything left; and our own island
will drift there too, unless we hold on,
unless we tap like this: "Friend,
are you there? Will you touch when
you pass, like the rain?"

William Stafford

Patrick O'hare

It's almost as if Patrick O'hare went into the future and shot all the photos for what I was (am?) going to paint in 2009. These photos are fantastic. I looked at every image on his site, I am really blown away by how wet, abstract, dirty and painterly these images are. They also remind me a lot of the midwest. I have to say that these are easily my favorite find in the new year so far - found via Notcot, via 1010 woodland, via unique lapin.







Oh - and the "Everybody Loves A Trainwreck" exhibition open tonight - I have a couple of photos up in the show.

Rain

It is finally raining here in Denver, and I'm a feeling a little drowsy, so I'll just refer you to some archived posts featuring art about rain -

Kana Tanaka "Passages in the Rain 2"

and

David Fried Rainscapes