Listen Closely

The recordings in this episode were recorded from (roughly) the same spot in my backyard from February to May. Produced in entirety by Alec Cowan.

What's your query? Produced in entirety by Alec Cowan.

New to Listen Closely? Here's your welcome mat.

Humanity has had ways of recording what we see for as long as history has been recorded. But the way we hear? A very recent phenomenon. This is what $10 on Ebay will get you. Music heard in this episode: Time Forest - Hiroshi Yoshimura People on Sunday - Domenique Dumont Lágrimas Negras - Hermanos Gutiérrez

AJ Schlechten is a woodworker and experimental artist in Fruita. Colorado. Find his website here and art here . Produced in entirety by Alec Cowan.

A sonic tour through Madrid, Seville, and Granada, Spain. 00:00 - Walking through El Retiro Park 02:26 - Birds in El Retiro 04:23 - Watching a street performer in Madrid 07:40 - Walking tour at Puerta del Sol to Plaza Mayor 12:50 - Inside the Almudena Cathedral 14:15 - The Prado 16:30 - At the Plaza de Toros 22:22 - Bells of Sevilla 23:00 - At Maria Louisa Park in Sevilla 25:00 - The Alcazar 27:18...

A sound walk through the marshes of Seattle.

This story took three years to make. Sort of. Featuring: gaming sessions from 2022, 2023, and 2024. Video game noises courtesy of late-night searches on Freesound.org.

Another day in the woods. A note: the text in this episode was AI generated. It comes from a ChaptGPT prompt asking for a podcast-styled narrative story about walking in the woods while it’s raining. I’ve tweaked language in places, and the rest of the production and music is completely original from me. This is meant to be more of a practice exercise and experiment, and is in no way an endorsemen...

My new documentary series -- "Boom Town: A Uranium Story" -- is officially releasing! Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and find photos, transcripts, and references over at www.aleccowan.com/boomtown

A quick podcast tour through Rome (featuring a cameo from Florence). Sites featured include: 00:21 — Birds in our Roma courtyard 00:59 — Exiting our apartment onto the Tiber 02:38 — Walking down the Tridente, Via di Ripetta 03:50 — San Luigi dei Francesci 05:08 — Outside the Pantheon 06:01 — Inside the Pantheon 06:56 — Piazza Navona 08:01 — Early morning birds at our Roma apartment 08:29 — Yes, ev...

A funeral.

A relaxing walk through the woods at Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States.

The sounds that filled the cracks of 2022 and 2023 (I'm late, I know).

A trip home sparks my memory of crickets. A walk and talk featuring beavers, skiing, and the clicks of grasshoppers.

Mary Oliver once wrote, "The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time." Poems are by: RikkyBoy399: https://freesound.org/people/RikkyBoy399/sounds/240389/ acclivity: https://freesound.org/people/acclivity/sounds/156550/ tim.kahn: https://freesound.org/people/tim.kahn/so...

A quick podcast tour through Tokyo. There were many more sounds I could have captured, but I've been a little burned out on audio lately. This is still a nice vignette of Tokyo's massive sonic fingerprint. Locations are as follows:01:24 — Tokyo Station04:59 — On the street by the Imperial Palace08:05 — Hibiya Park10:27 — In the Metro14:45 — Kanda Matsuri, at Kanda Myojin Shrine19:47 — Shibuya 21:2...

There's a cool concept called "The Global Sunrise." This is the idea that, as the dawn sun hits the earth, birds are waking up and singing their morning song. As daylight moves across the planet, there's a constant hum of new birdsong ringing out somewhere.  So here's a little sonic experiment, where you can experience birdsong from all over the worth, progressively, as the day light might hit it....

I turn on my phone, open TikTok, and the hours blur away. So much content, I had to make some more. Where were you when you made your first Facebook account?  This is podcast #CoreCore. Sonic #NicheCore.

*This is a language warning*  Be a host body. Haze's linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheHippieTrippyFrog You can find Haze's content on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CaptainSheo  You can listen to Witchcraft Banjo here: https://anchor.fm/hippiehobbity/episodes

Some thoughts on listening and some things to listen to. Enjoy on a walk and with good headphones.  02:57 — Outside Newark Airport 04:10 — A bench in the Jardin des Plantes 05:54 — Walking the 5th Arrondissement 06:46 — A cafe outside Saint Chapelle cathedral 07:36 — Walking the 5th Arrondissement (contd.) 09:48 — The Paris Catacombs 12:33 — Paris Metro 16:24 — In and around Saint Sulpice, the sec...

Combing frequencies, playing with pans, and a whole bunch of "WTF is this?"

I've always been bad at journaling. I've started four to five notebooks, but have only ever finished one (last year). Lately, I've been thinking about alternate life plans, spent time, different timelines. I revisited some experiences in my journal to remind myself a bit about who I am, and where I've gone. I wanted to take you on that journey as well.

It goes like this: use a random word generator to source ten sounds from freesound.org. Then, combine them together to make an interesting sound.

A mission leads to a change, a change to an opportunity. What's life like when you find sudden fame?  Produced in its entierety by Alec Cowan.