Peep Croak Growl

Echozoo

Happy Summer Solstice! Thank you to everyone who has supported the Echozoo Hatchfund project. If you missed the last email, Echozoo is a new smartphone App I’m developing which will play a musical score of re-imagined extinct animal sounds that lived in your part of the world. The App seeks to foster a sense of connection and wonder with our biological sound world past, present and future.

This is going to be one of the biggest projects I’ve even undertaken. It’s really a culmination of my work as a composer, sound design, meditator and Deep Listener. This Hatchfund will enable me to take the time I need to work on this project and not just work on it in my “spare time” away from work. I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received for this project so far.

However, we still need to raise about $1700 to make our minimum goal and there’s less than two weeks to go! If you’re thinking of pledging to the project, now is the time. Please spread the word and support this project if you’re curious about the largely untapped world of extinct animal sound design. Any level of support is appreciated and all donations are 100% tax deductible.

http://hatchfund.org/project/echozoo

The hood of the Ayatana van "Jellymoon"

I just returned from my week in Canada at the Ayatana Artist Research Program. I had the honor to live and work with a group of artists as we met with animal and field recording experts for various outings during the week.

Recording bird sound. Photo by Alexis Williams

We went on at least two excursions each day to listen to the rich biophony found in Ontario and Québec. Above is a photo when we went on an expedition with a local bird expert.

Below is a photo of us at an animal acoustics lab at Carlton University. This team of scientists work with the audible communication and listening of caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers and crickets. 

Listening to Insects in the Lab

One of my favorite nights was listening to bats using an Arduino bat detectors we built with maker Michael Grant from Krazatchu.

Listening for bats at dusk. Photo by Nadya Edelstein

We all recorded so many sounds. Ayatana setup a SoundCloud page with many of our samples of birds, frogs, insects, bats, beavers, wind, earth, water and some man-made sounds.

Many of the sounds I recorded at Ayatana will make their way into Echozoo. I have another field recording trip planned for August in the Northwest US where I hope to record more animals sounds for the project.

Finally, I made this collage of sounds from the week in Canada. Please enjoy:

Ayatana Collage

Thanks for reading, watching, sharing and listening.

-Michael