stopGOstop: field recordings, sound collage, and sound art

The Structure of the Earth (part one of two) a new composition for speakers or headphones.

New patterns! Spies! Alcohol! Orson Welles! Food! Mars! and much! much! more! stopGOstop is proud to present, The New Vegetable; or all of New Jersey is an Inferno , a new sound collage.

The economy! The economy! The economy! stopGOstop is proud to present Inventive Genius a new sound collage.

Robots made from human cells! Tap dancing! World War 2! Gossip Girl! Hockey! and much! much! more! stopGOstop presents, Warm, like a live rabbit , a new sound collage.

The piece centers on the repetitive nature of daily life, and even when the world is fragmented, seemingly destroyed, there is hope that it can be repaired, and restored. Based on “The Sow took the Measles” a folk song from colonial New England. The original verse tells of Yankee practical idealism, of making good out of a bad situation. Featuring field recordings, synthesized instrume...

As the world slides sideways, episode 135 of the podcast focuses on a collage of closeup and foley recordings, with occasional accompaniment by computer synthesized contrabass and tuba. The recordings include: opening a can of seltzer, pouring water, semi-rhythmic rubbing and tapping glass and cardboard, opening kitchen cabinet doors, futzing with a tape measure and cordless drill.

In an experiment on the Moon, Apollo 15 Commander David Scott, dropped a geological hammer and a falcon feather simultaneously * . I can’t imagine Galileo ever considered that his thought experiment would be realized, or maybe that’s what he was thinking about in the fall of 1609 when was looking at the moon through his telescope and created, in watercolor, the first realistic depictio...

A low rumble. A repetitive flute and then piano — moving slowly up and down, finding a path in through the dark night — the two play at the same time, not really together. A strumming rises and falls on the left. The tune is never playful, never mournful, not quit even, looking for its way. A held note, hoping to be propelled forward. Are those voices, is it a crowd? The harmonic shift...

The big bang, 1950’s dating advice, what it means to be popular, the death of capitalism, and much! much! more! — a new sound collage.

An old song on a computer generated piano; a theme from a 1950’s instructional video; miscellaneous bits, clicks and static; unintelligible voices; a river; a slow bell. This episode continues to collage together samples and sounds as an accompaniment to a melody based on the folk songs, this episode features The Avondale Mine Disaster. http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/01...

An old song on a computer generated piano; field and foley recordings; miscellaneous bits and pieces of digital sounds; a sine waves; the ocean; a train. Episode 130 of the podcast re-edits past episodes as an accompaniment to collaged piano based on the folk song The Housewife’s Lament .

The Golden Record! Gravity! Cassette tape navigation! Sound waves! old voicemails! hair care advice! Proper care for vinyl record! and more! stopGOstop presents  Does the Golden Record have a high quality inner sleeve? , a new sound collage.

After the destination has been set, after the engines have cut off, as the computers go into hibernation, you are in the void, the vast nothing. Space is big, mind-bogglingly big its…. nothing to do but wait. Episode 128, The Float, is part two of a multi-episode journey from Earth to the beyond, featuring field recordings, miscellaneous NASA sounds, and a few digital instruments.

Part one of an odyssey from Earth to the beyond. The episode starts with a pre-launch check, liftoff, the melody of space flight, and continues with the sounds you thought you left behind, or are they memories, maybe you just need more vitamin B….what is it like to dream in space… does weightlessness effect the unconscious mind… No Praeterita! Ad Posterum! Ad Astra!  

A new composition for headphones featuring a field recording near the end of the Kitchen Mesa trail (Ghost Ranch, NM), slow midi-controlled tones, and percussive sounds made with an small Amazon box.

Episode 125 is a new sound collage featuring Gregory Peck, Richard Feynman, a manipulated recording of mowing the grass with a hand mower, a binaural recording of the Hillcrest Farmers Market (San Diego) and the scientific method. http://www.stopgostop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/125.mp3 stopGOstop is produced by John Wanzel. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via this link  RSS ,...

This week on the podcast, the sounds and feelings of driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving, while the mind wanders.

The history and environmental impacts of cement, mind-blowing theories about the universe, atomic testing at Bikini Atoll, the Chernobyl disaster, and much much more! stopGOstop is proud to present  Another exiting prospect , a new sound collage.

A slow circular conversation that occasionally paraphrases Shakespeare and Chekhov, to create a lamentation to work, aging and trying to talk to those around you. Featuring a binaural recording of a walk in Long Island City, Queens, and a quintet of midi-based instruments. Is it a metal block, a helicopter overhead, the ocean flows in our veins, a single leaf without context, the hushed sounds of...

A twenty-five minute binaural recording of a walk from Grand Central Terminal to Times Square. I was originally going to end the episode standing above  Max Neuhaus: Times Square  located between 45th and 46th in Midtown Manhattan, but it was the summer solstice, so they were doing yoga throughout the area. The specific grate that the piece radiates out from was covered with AV road cases.

A ten minute binaural recording standing under the Cross County Parkway, with traffic singing above, a few cars passing in front, a sneeze, and the occasional sound of pages turning (I was reading Motherhood by Sheila Heti during the recording).

A binaural recording of a walk from Cross County Mall to our house in Mount Vernon. An hour long walk through lower Westchester County, in the suburbs of New York City where my wife and I have lived for the last four years. I refereed to it as the Cross Country Mall in the recording… a verbal mistake I have made over and over again. A quick note: the next couple of episodes of the pod are go...

Episode 118 starts with a two minute recording of the Atlantic Ocean moves underground to the One train, traveling south in Manhattan, it continues with a recording of a desk chair being moved back and forth on linoleum, then the sounds of a resting steam engine, with an uptempo piano, and a slow and steady synth… a sixteen minute collage of synthesized sounds along side field and foley reco...

A new composition for headphones featuring field and foley recordings, counting and computer-based polyphonic synthesization . 

My thoughts aim west, combining a field recording made on the Los Angles Public Transportation’s Expo Line, with a new composition for computer generated piano, and small midi instrument ensemble. For download, here is the score for  part one  of the composition.