We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Maps Of Nowhere

by Hal McGee

supported by
greenambient2018
greenambient2018 thumbnail
P-A.H
P-A.H thumbnail
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

1.
Recognition Physics 23:07
2.
Islands And Outparcels 19:17
3.
Terrain Vague 22:51
4.
Sounds From The Selvage 08:56

about

Maps Of Nowhere consists of four long tracks distilled from 12 hours of field recordings made on a handheld cassette recorder - recorded August through October 2000.

Lots of shortwave radio tones and static; surreptitious recordings from my work environment in a hospital; quotidian, found and trash sounds: alarm clock, Hare Krishna chanting, public transportation, street & traffic noises, toys, children, family, howling maniac dogs, mundane conversations -- audio ethnographic recordings from the streets, alleys, sidewalks, parking lots, and fields of Gainesville, Florida -- all blended, multitracked and contorted into big concrete music noisy cut-up collages.

I employed chance process, aleatory and automatistic methods of dada and surrealism in the making of Maps Of Nowhere.

Constructed on a Fostex XR-5 4-track cassette recorder.

Review by Jerry Kranitz in Aural Innovations #20, April 2002:
A collage of noise, voice samples, and in the background early on it sounds like some old American folk or chanting religious song. I hear sirens, traffic, and samples from the radio, implying some distorted urban landscape. But things are at various points in the recording somewhat more tangible as we hear Hal's conversations with people at work and other places. It's amazing how sensitive a tape recorder can be, and the slightest shuffling of objects is as prominent in volume as are the conversations. Though the noise is... well, noise... it isn't grating though it can certainly be brain-piercing. How, you ask, can sounds be brain-piercing but not grating? Well, it's hard to explain but my brain perceives a difference between the two. Grating is when you just have this huge sonic wall of noise all blended together and the listener is completely unable to distinguish between multiple sounds. So even though things get pretty chaotic on Maps Of Nowhere, I feel myself getting involved in Hal's world when I can distinguish and even recognize many of the layers and elements that make up the whole. The voices, the drones, the whistles, the traffic.... and so on. If you're relaxed and let your imagination go then a parade of surprisingly concrete images will formulate in your mind. It's difficult to describe the aesthetics of pure sound, especially when those sounds happen to be a tad harsh.

credits

released October 15, 2000

license

tags

discography

contact / help

Contact Hal McGee

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Hal McGee, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now