After debuting in January with Evening, window, a lovely loop-based work on Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Helsinki’s miska lamberg has returned with stillness in their isolation on Sawyer Editions, part of the Batch 7 Bundle that also includes works from Annie Dodson, Dylan Kerr, Michael Pisaro-Liu and Manja Ristić. The two recordings display a trajectory in which field recordings rise from the backdrop to the fore.
One of lamberg’s fascinations is the threshold at which one begins to hear a specific sound. Normally the realm of hearing tests, in this case it is applied to two distinct sets of field recordings: “transportation” and “ventilation.” Listeners may experience a wide spectrum of reactions, reflecting the distance from “The Hum” (which allegedly affects up to 4% of the world’s population) to the comfort of a familiar appliance.
lamberg writes, “the hustle and bustle of the big city has made me realize how sensitive i am to noise.” “transportation” attempts to tame traffic sounds, lowering the volume and smoothing the frequencies. While listening, one may think of how some city residents are able to acclimate while others are not. The early (buried) sirens are enough to disturb the sleep, and recall COVID times, when there were only sirens; yet even a car alarm can be swallowed in a cacophony of sound. In this piece, however, the birds are as audible as the cars. In urban areas, they must be louder in order to compete for sonic space, but in this instance the traffic recedes so they can be heard.
This is not to say that these frequencies are even; as early as the fourth minute, the volume and density increase, akin to the action of wind and waves. Yet there is never a sense that the sounds have overflowed their boundaries, as one experiences when an emergency vehicle rushes by at a high decibel level. Instead, the piece is an idealized anthropophony, constant yet lulling, a mulch that represents noise pollution while dampening its effects. Deep in the piece, a section of sirens sounds like a distant herd of yowling cats; the city has been anthropomorphized. In the closing minutes, precipitation adds its own white noise and generates a gurgle of electronic frogs.
“ventilation” blends the sounds of indoor and outdoor air conditioning units, eliminating the single feature that disturbs a listener’s sleep: the on and off. Instead, the sounds are constant, undulating, even comforting. In their raw form, lamberg often found such noises overwhelming, and sought to make them “tolerable;” the artist exceeds even his own expectations by making them as inviting as the rush of a stream. Children play in the distance; the birds emerge again.
This leads to an obvious question: might municipalities be able to mimic these effects? Currently, 39% of Helsinki residents face daily noise levels over the 55 dB limit, while the recent Air Quality and Noise Abatement Plan 2024-2029 seeks to address such issues. Through sound alone, stillness in their isolation exemplifies this vision of a healthy future. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 