Rural Texas today, and some gorgeous binaural recordings of summer birdsong by new contributor Neil Jones.

Neil describes his field recording: “It was recorded in the backyard at my mother’s house while I was visiting her, on a country road just south of town [Alvin, Texas].

“There are many patches of live oak and pine trees in the area, most of them quite old. It was a cool, still morning and the birds were especially active so I just had to capture the moment.

“As for the recording, it was taken with a binaural setup that I built myself out of a foam manikin head, casts of my own ears, and two small omnidirectional microphones placed where the ear drums would be. It looks quite creepy, but it works fantastically!”

For the memory version of the sound, every aspect has been created from the original field recording of birdsong.

By taking small snippets and slowing them to a level of tiny detail, I’ve been able to create a bed of rich drones to use as my base material for the piece, which are then layered and effected in various ways to build a piece that grows and develops over its duration.

It’s a microscopic study of the tonality of birdsong – enjoy!

City version:

 

Memory version: