conscient podcast

Here is another bonus episode, this one is called 'Portrait of Robin Mathews'. It is 3 part unpublished radio program I created in 2005 in collaboration with Robin based on an interview I recorded with him in 2004. The program is a layered discussion about the history of political poetry in Canada, the role of the artist in society and family matters, in particular his relationship with me as my f...

e129 world listening day - what does world listening day mean to you? (bell and breath) Every July 18th is World Listening Day. It’s also composer and acoustic ecologist R. Murray Schafer’s birthday. Rest in peace Murray.  Now World Listening Day 2023 proposes three very interesting  listening prompts and I'll try to answer their questions in today's episode. Question 1 What can we learn from the...

(bell and breath) (movement 1 of vancouver soundscape revisited, eagle) You’re listening to the first movement, eagle , of my 1996 soundscape composition, vancouver soundscape revisited . I describe the piece in the program note as : an impressionistic portrait of the musicality and poetry of past, present and future soundscapes of Vancouver composed using archival sounds dating from the World Sou...

Note: the podcast recording was improvised based on this script and therefore has additional material. This 127th episode of the conscient podcast marks the halfway point of season 4, which, as you might recall, is called Sounding Modernity and explores what modernity might sound like, how it affects us and what we can do about it..  Maybe… A heads up that this episode is 57 minutes in duration be...

(soundscapes of east vancouver at c. 5am) I can’t sleep tonight.  What about you?  I love nighttime soundscapes.  They’re so bareboned, minimal, like the rumble that you hear now, mostly from Vancouver harbour, but also the industrial area here in east vancouver. So I'm up, recording, listening, figuring out what keeps me up at night, this night, other nights, when I listen and try to understand.....

(bell) I take stock of climate news by reading the headlines of the excellent daily newspaper, national observer, for example, on Tuesday April 25th, 2023 these were the headlines :  ‘We might have a coverup problem’: MPs grill Alberta Energy Regulator CEO over oil sands tailings leaks (sound of dripping and filtering from simplesoundscapes e34 goutte ) ‘Meet the man turning mushrooms into meat’ (...

I decided to go for a walk this morning here in Kitchener, Ontario. A soundwalk.. Just because it's something to do; to be connected to a place.  This is a settlement of course : a city. What I try to do is listen to sounds past, present, and future at the same time. How does one do that?  It’s mostly about feeling our way through what was here, and what I assume was forested lands. What is here n...

(Bell and breath)  I sometimes try to map out, on a piece of blank paper like this, where I think humanity is at with the ecological crisis… This helps me, among other things, to come to terms with reality.  I decided to share this exercise with you, listeners of the conscient podcast, in case you have similar thoughts.  I’ll start on the left with mitigation, which is the act of reducing the seve...

(bell and breath) (Sounds of forest in winter with icicles) Sometimes we just have to stop and listen.  Without passing judgement.  Just listen…. Sometimes we just have to stop and listen * Recorded at our cottage in Duhamel, Québec on December 30th, 2022. Thanks to the forest and the frozen rain for this wonderful soundscape. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that pr...

(bell) (humming to urban drones)  This is Dr. Decibel. Your sonic superhero on the unseated ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations otherwise known as…  Well, I think you know where I am. (plane passing by) You have a problem here people. The low frequencies are excessive : traffic, industry, ventilation. Layers and layers of rumble and I hate rumble.  Rumbleeeee...

(bell and breath) (sounds of a subway car throughout) Sometimes we just have to stop and listen.  Without passing judgement.  Just listen…. Sometimes we just have to stop and listen. * Recorded on February 2, 2023 at 1.43pm between the Georges-Vanier, Lucien-L’Allier, Bonaventure and Square Victoria stops of the Montreal metro. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that p...

In this episode I invite you to listen to a construction site, unaltered and raw.  How does the sound of construction affect you? * This episode was recorded at the corner of Frances St and Salsbury Drive, Vancouver on March 6, 2023 at 10.10am. Thanks to the construction workers for use of their sounds.  I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the priv...

(bell and breath) where does your shit go? (toilet flush 1) where does your shit go? (toilet flush 2) where does your shit go? (toilet flush 3) where does your shit go? (toilet flush 4) where does your shit go? * These four toilet flushes were recorded in Peterborough, Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario  Thanks to the sanitary workers around the world who literally clean up our shit.  I am grateful and a...

(in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023) (bell) ( Deeper Into the Forest (2023) poem by Robin Mathews, narrated by Robin Mathews with sound design from field recordings by me) Deeper Into the Forest Lights flash in the skies above. Voices sound…. As if coming over a hill, As if connected to bodies Out of reach, (perhaps, even, the products of imagination) Except… you know th...

a conversation between robin and myself about the origins of this poem (in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023) (in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023) Transcription of bonus episode Robin That's a funny poem.  Claude What's it about, do you think? What do you remember it being about? Do you recognize it as your own? ?  Robin I do recognize it, but I...

(bell and breath) (muffled sound of ocean waves) This recording filters out all high and mid-range frequencies that I captured of ocean waves at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida, on March 23, 2023 around midnight while doing an impromptu soundwalk with colleagues from the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology conference Listenng Pasts - Listening Futures. Why did I do this?  I invite you to sit w...

(bell) I got up this morning, or I was awoken rather by the most beautiful sound. It was a snow plow, very gently pushing the snow from the sidewalk. It was a beep and I could hear it, at a distance, and now it's passed.  So I decided to take out my microphone and, and record. It made me think about my friend and colleague Eric La Casa in France, who I've known for a long time, and is a very accom...

(Claude Schryer n 2023) It's March 6, 2023 and I’m at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver. About 2 years ago, I went for a long soundwalk with climate activist, and now politician, Anjali Appadurai, which became episode 23 of season 2 of this podcast.  It was the first time that Anjali did a soundwalk and it was a very powerful moment for me because I've often thought back about what Anjali said that day...

(Jacek Smolicki) The ultimate question I'm asking is how can we move away from soundwalk as a kind of framed aesthetic experience or artistic experience and turn it into an existential practice or basically something that is just ingrained in our everyday life and we don't have to frame it anymore. It's just basically part of our way of living.  (Claude Schryer) Can you give an example of that?  (...

(Claude Schryer) Jacek, what is soundwalking?  (Jacek Smolicki) That's a very broad question, but I'll try to answer from two perspectives: my own and from what is kind of more generally considered soundwalking. So, to quote Hildegard Westerkamp , one of the pioneers of that practice, basically, a soundwalk is any kind of excursion into an environment which is motivated by us listening to it. Whet...

(various layered excerpts from my soundscape compositions throughout this episode)   Conclusion 1 : we need to face reality and learn how to unlearn Mayer Hillman, e01 : ‘ We’re doomed. The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very...

(bell, breath and occasional balloon sounds) Me : have you ever had the feeling that you were being observed? Observer : I’m observing you.  Me: Who are you and what are you observing?  Observer: Ah, well, I’m a part of you and  I’m observing the traps that you fall into. Me:  Traps? Observer : Do you remember the Facing Human Wrongs course you took during the summer of 2022 Me: Ya. Observer: The...

(sound of bath draining, at first with a strong oscillating rhythm followed by water flowing and silence) It goes down the drain (again) and into the sewer system to be processed and dumped into the Ottawa river, then it evaporates into the sky and it rains back into our lakes and rivers, bringing with it with many pollutants, and then is pumped into our homes, in our bodies and heated until… (rep...

(bell and breath) On December 19th, 2022 I read David Maggs’ Art and the Ouija Board? blog, as part of his Metcalf Foundation Fellow on Arts and Society. I was struck by this section in particular: Like a Ouija board or a dowsing wand, art is the capacity to pay attention to the world in unusual ways, a capacity to attend to the world in terms of the aesthetic. To make sense of life through lines,...

(Sound of fire) This is another fireside storytelling episode, this time by a wood stove at our cottage. Thanks for joining me. Pull up a chair…  As I mentioned in episode 106, sometimes, when I get discouraged I like to build a fire, like this, to lift my spirits and to re-energize.  (Sound of fire)  Today’s story is an excerpt from Part 1, Warm Up : Into The Future from Vanessa Andreotti’s Hospi...