This week I am excited to share a collaboration with photographer, avid runner, and pedal steel ringer Bill McCullough! Bill is an amazing photographer based in Austin whose street work I have admired for years. We met courtesy of the Artist Run Club when the group visited the studio he and his wife Meredith Miller, an accomplished printmaker and book artist, share. Bill has also played pedal steel with the lauded Austin band Knife in the Water for going on 20 years.
We met on Bill’s porch and played for a long time. What a joy! This piece is a kind of supercut of a small portion of what was a pursuit of pure pleasure. Bill shot the images and I put them in a code blender. I love how the cat fits perfectly into the shape made by the cactus.
PSO EVENT: ICOSA SOUNDSCAPE
PSO has been invited to participate in ICOSA’s Soundscape Program, in which an audio piece is played from about 5pm to 7am daily, from December 4 to January 4th.
We are working on a date for a listening party–think camping chairs, blankets, and camp stoves in mid-December.
There is also a physical release in the works to accompany the presentation.
STAY TUNED….
THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST AND YOUTUBE STREAM
Hear and see images recorded waterside from the banks of the Blanco River at University Camp (which now will NOT be sold to Needmore Ranch!), next to Wild Bill Lake in Montana, and at Barton Springs Pool, along with many missives from the porch dating back to 2020.
Above is PSO no.131 made on the Blanco River in 2020.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet
On SoundCloud
In the Library of Congress
Metzner has been exploring the world through sound and field recordings since the 1970s. Since 1989, he has published the syndicated radio program Pulse of the Planet, for which his microphone has recorded (according to the Library of Congress, which just acquired his archive) “from the Japanese stock exchange to New York’s Saratoga racetrack to a “dawn chorus” of macaws, chachalacas, parakeets, doves, cicadas, blackbirds and other wildlife recorded in the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil. He has made similarly eclectic recordings of people, places and things in Alaska’s Toolik Lake, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, Sapelo Island in Georgia, Australia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Florida, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Crete, Ireland, and Nepal.”
Water Drumming
He produced a radio show about the natural world, the “Sound of Science,” which in two-minute bursts managed to dive deeply into “a range of complex topics, engaging with key figures in different fields, such as Dr. Charles Munn, who guided listeners through the sounds of the Amazonian rain forest; geologist Mary Emma Wagner, who explained and demonstrated the phenomenon of resonating or “ringing” rocks; famed entomologist E.O. Wilson, speaking of consilience, biophilia and, of course, ants; Richard Leakey on the importance of conservation; engineer Linsey Marr discussing cutting edge research on airborne particles; and Brazilian shaman Kinnikinau, Chief Raoni of the Kayapo, and dozens of other First Nations spokespersons imparting the wisdom of indigenous knowledge.”
Booming Dunes
Thanks to PSO member Gregory Brooks for sharing this with me.