Pacific Slope (2002) 25'00"
“Assuming form, it reveals shapes half-seen and then half-hid.
In dark half-hid, a likening; In light half-dark, shapes visible. . . ”
– Lao Tzu
The region of the North American continent which drains into the Pacific Ocean is referred to as the Pacific Slope.
Metaphor, ‘the wave’— unending, unyielding, paradoxically powerful, at the same time intangible. The ocean as birth place and endless desert, both life and death— united without sentiment.
The ringing bell— an ancient call to transcendence. At once an attempt to stay ‘the wave’, halt death and life; metal, the interior of earth— controlled by man. Yet masses move unheeding.
Realizations, regardless. . . .
Many thanks to Jeff Silberman, whose generous loan of a Nagra D digital tape machine has made recording the Pacific Ocean in Ambisonic surround sound possible. I am also very grateful for Jeff’s generosity with his loan of an Ambisonic decoder— which has greatly facilitated work on Pacific Slope.
A number of people have assisted in gathering the sounds heard today. Matt Ingalls stood in icy Pacific waters at the Marin Headlands with Jeff’s Nagra strapped to him, Juan Pampin and Mirta Wyrmzberg threw logs and broke fallen branches in an Oregon forest, and Jeff Silberman engineered the recording of bells in his studio just north of San Francisco
Joseph Anderson (Dayton, Ohio, USA, 1970)
has been employed as a sound recordist, a radio producer, and a surround sound mix engineer. He studied composition and computer music at the University of Texas at Austin with Karl Korte and Russell Pinkston. Following that, four years were spent in the UK as a member of the Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST). In 1995, at the University of Birmingham, an MMus was completed with Jonty Harrison. Work continues on a PhD.
Recognitions have included a “Grand Prix” from the 1997 Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition for Change's Music, and he has been commissioned by organizations such as BBC Radio 3, and the UK’s Society for the Promotion of New Music.
Since February of this year, he has been on leave from his position with Analog Devices’ Audio Rendering Technology Center, and has been spending this time writing tape music in a studio on his family’s farm in Corvallis, Oregon.
