Synesthetech

Recording traffic passing over metal construction plates, 111 West Jackson St, Chicago, April 29, 2009 (photo by Alessandra Gillen)

Picking up where I left off, here’s my second batch of recent Chicago field recordings, my sonic farewell before Alex and I move to Ann Arbor…

1. Rain outside apartment sunporch (9:35, 20.7MB mp3)

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   Almost ten minutes of a lovely evening rain from the acoustically rich interior of our apartment’s sunporch, facing north.

2. Purple Line CTA train arriving at Howard (4:47, 10.5MB mp3)

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   A healthy portion of the second half of my morning commute (Brown line to Belmont Purple line, then Purple line to Davis). This is actually a Purple line only to Howard, so occasionally my commute has had three parts instead of two. I was lucky to get a recording of the train interior without anyone speaking.

3. Traffic over metal construction plates, 111 West Jackson St. (5:56, 12.3MB mp3)

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   Recorded at the same time the picture above was taken. A block-long stretch of Jackson Street down in the Loop has had a series of large, square metal plates on it for some time, and when the traffic runs over them they make a great booming sound which echoes amazingly off all the skyscrapers nearby.

4. Fountain, Art Institute of Chicago garden (4:00, 8.2MB mp3)

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   Public fountain season’s upon us, so this is a recording of this fountain now that it actually has water in it again.

5. Modern Wing of Art Insitute of Chicago under construction (3:20, 6.9MB mp3)

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   A compact little field recording symphony. I love the way the drone of the equipment and the traffic interplay at first, followed by the construction worker’s whistling and the woman’s footsteps in the gravel. A great beginning, middle and end. Can’t wait to finally see the inside of the new Modern Wing in person this coming weekend!

6. Walking to Sox-35th CTA station after White Sox victory (1:37, 3.3MB mp3)

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   A nice moment of public euphoria, saxophone and changing acoustic spaces as we walk across a bridge over the freeway and into the Sox-35th CTA Red Line station.

7. Birds, cars and El trains, 5:15am (8:47, 17.3MB mp3)

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   Since I have the sleeping habits of a 70 year old man, I usually wake up around 4:30am. When spring starts, the morning birds go crazy. This was the first really riotous bird morning of the season, and i recorded this out the windows of our living room.

8. Chicago River bridge raising alarm bells from Merchandise Mart CTA train platform (1:32, 3.1MB mp3)

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   I’ve rarely seen the bridges over the Chicago River down in the Loop raise up to let boats pass underneath. I’d never seen the bridge raise up in front of the Merchandise Mart CTA train platform while I was actually on the train until this past weekend. With the bridge up, the train couldn’t pass, so we disembarked and stood on the platform so I could get a recording of the bridge’s warning bells as it lowered back down into place, mixing nicely with the walkie talkie communications of a CTA employee standing next to me.

9. Hissing air vent above Chicago Union Station Amtrak track, National Train Day (2:25, 4.6MB mp3)

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   After touring an Amtrak Superliner train during the free National Train Day event at Union Station last weekend, we stepped back onto the track and walked right under an air vent with an amazing hiss. That wall of white noise has a few cracks in it which expose some of the other sounds in the station at the time.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Recording birds in a Lincoln Square apartment window, April 18, 2009 (photo by Alessandra Gillen)

Later this month, Alex and I will be moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I’ll be entering the MFA program in Art & Design at the University of Michigan this fall. Although I’m really excited about what lies ahead there, it means not only leaving a lot of great friends, but also leaving a sonically-rich world-class city for a much smaller college town.

With that in mind, I’ve been trying to document even more of the sounds around me as I make my final rounds throughout Chicago. I’ll be posting them here in batches over the next few weeks. I’ll also be doing a going-away performance on WLUW’s Something Else program on Sunday, May 17, and I’m planning on one of my sets being a mix of untreated field recordings of Chicago which will use many of the recordings here among others I’ve made over the years.

1. Automated voices in Union Station (3:31, 7.1MB mp3)

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   One of my favorite sound spots in all of Chicago. I could listen to the Amtrak track identifiers all day.

2. Event setup, The Great Hall, Union Station (2:20, 4.6MB mp3)

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   While I was waiting to pick up some friends, I recorded an event that was being set up in Union Station’s Great Hall, a wonderfully reverb-heavy space.

3. John Hancock Tower open-air observatory (1:05, 2.4MB mp3)

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   A great place to stand and listen, but difficult to make a recording without the sound of other people on the observation deck!

4. Birds in Lincoln Square apartment window (1:09, 2.7MB mp3)

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   Heading to the Metra on the morning of Alex’s birthday, we stumbled across this ground-floor apartment window with a birdcage and a very talkative bird. I didn’t realize at the time that there are also lots of other birds inside the apartment, which you can hear in this recording.

5. Morning weekday traffic, 143 E. Chicago Ave. (10:47, 22.2MB mp3)

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   Downtown rush-hour on a fairly quiet stretch of Chicago Avenue, a block away from the Museum of Contemporary Art.

6. Michigan Avenue construction (5:11, 10.8MB mp3)

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   Standing in front of the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue, I recorded the work being done at the recently-demolished building across the street. Lots of great traffic sounds, too.

7. Afternoon traffic on Lake Shore Drive (9:28, 18.9MB mp3)

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   Nice stretch of droning traffic sound, recorded while sitting at a bus shelter right on Lake Shore Drive (while not actually waiting for a bus). Nice mix of foot and vehicle traffic.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.