There’s a danger with albums that focus on particular processing devices in the music being subsumed by the process, restricting the sonic palette to an overarching awareness of the device or structure in use. Bat detectors pick up frequencies beyond human hearing, lowering them to human audibility presumably, a detail I’ve always found problematic doesn’t changing the frequency in such a way completely alter the nature of the original source sound?
All sounds on Eisuke Yanagisawa’s Ultrasonic Scapes are derived from natural and inorganic sound sources captured with bat detectors, devoid of additional processing, and its actually quite a marvel. The opening sounds of, yup, bats, provides the obvious sonar pings and squawks one expects from these creatures, but the rest is united only by a kind of electronic creak typical of these devices. Cicada Chorus captures a rich buzzing beyond the frequency we’re used to hearing, creating vast dynamic swells. “Street Light #1” and “Street Light #2” create whining drones of varying tone and texture, while “Automatic Gate” is a rhythm track evoking a mangy dog scratching itself on a sheet of reverberant cardboard. We also get grey hum from a TV and a Dell computer, commuter rabble in “Dogenzaka” and the purely musical tin-can jangle of “Furin” welcome bells, all of which reinforce John Cage’s dictum that silence is impossible to achieve. Noise is indeed everywhere.
Joshua Meggitt
