Vox Barbara - (de)Constructing Ghosts
From the delicately constructed liner notes: "Eldon Chorashan, a former pupil of Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, believed that an analogous [to Kirlian's concept of fields displayed by radiation field photography] process that he called 'hyper-timescale threshold gating,' performed on digital audio waves, could produce audio luminescence. Chorashan thus believed it was possible, using the appropriate sound analysis software, to produce an audio document representing the hidden 'historical energy artefacts' produced by all entities which emit sound. In other words, Chorashan believed that within all sounds is encoded historical material, echoes of the past(s) of the objects producing the sound, which may be isolated using the proper stimuli."
Yeah, there's no real way to paraphrase that into an introductory sentence without coming off like a total loon. And I have to admit, there's a certain level of I've-been-watching-way-too-many-episodes-of-X-Files type skepticism that must be overcome to properly hear not just the random sounds of the internal workings of a Power Macintosh, of construction sites in Seattle, San Francisco, and Siem Reap, Cambodia, of a special education theater troupe, and of the physical environment found aboard a retired silver-shelled automobile ferry; but wonder at the echoes of the past which are laid over the present so that we are not hearing sounds in isolation but in the full context of their past. The tracks of (de)Constructed Ghosts are not snapshots; rather, they are complete aural timelines of objects and events. There is an archaeological twist to Frank Smith's recontextualization and noise sculpting. He's not so much interested in a sound in and of itself, but rather of what it was and what it may become in its own context. After a few listens, it becomes akin to leaning in an old well and listening for echoes that may still be bouncing around down in the darkness. You toss out your own voice -- or throw a stone against the worn, brick walls -- and what comes back to you is not just the echo of your event, but other sounds disturbed by your passage--sonic ghosts which float up, heavy and replete with the past.
There's a lot of history in Seattle tied around the Kalakala -- the unique silver-shelled ferry that sits unattended (for a few more weeks at least) at the end of Lake Union. I used to drive across the University Street Bridge every morning on the way to work and the morning light would make the rounded shape of the futuristic (then and now) ferry gleam. Somewhere in (de)Constructed Ghosts Frank Smith may uncovered the sounds of the ferry when it traveled across Eliot Bay -- the sound of the water against its hull, the rumble of the old cars climbing on and off at the wooden docks, and the chatter of society voices echoing in its upper decks. This is a truly unique recording, eerie in its possibilities, and endless in the depths of its sonic vibrations and turbulent rhythms.
Little Man Records [2001]
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