Play Annea Lockwood, A Sound map of the Housatonic River
I am fascinated by the multi-layered complexity of the sounds created by rivers and have been exploring them for years in my ‘sound maps’ of the Hudson River, the Danube and the Housatonic River. These are all multi-channel sound installations, with no visual elements save a large wall map of each river. An aural scan is a different experience from a visual scan – more intimate, I find. The energy flow of a river can be sensed very directly through the sounds created by the friction between the current, the riverbank and the riverbed.
This is an excerpt from my most recent sound map, which traces the course of the Housatonic River from the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts to the river’s mouth on the Connecticut coast, in the USA. The excerpt picks up the river at its confluence with the Pootatuck River at Sandy Hook, and moves on to underwater recordings of aquatic insects at Jackson Cove, near the river’s mouth.
A Sound Map of the Housatonic River was published as a CD by 3leaves-label in 2013 and is available from www.3leaves-label.com
Further information on this and the other river works can be found at www.annealockwood.com