Doug Haire

Notes on Campsites

Campsites, intersecting field recording with resonant drone.

At this intersection sits seven campsites. Studies in nuance.

Captured sounds in nature. Collecting time unplanned and stray.

Drones drawn out from slowly unfolding sounds as distillations of the resonant frequencies of the moment.

The observed and observer combined into gently focused strands of colored rays of sound.

Within these long arcs time moves slowly. Rarely found is the metronome that marks the larghissimo time of Haire’s work.

Sounds long as the horizon. Works created by a practiced listener—a desert wanderer.

Are these meditations? Observations?

Or maybe simply as Haire puts it… “I hear the world turning with me still in it.”

1) What would you like listeners to know about your work on Campsites?

A: All of my recent work has started with the act of going somewhere and listening for the localness of the soundscape. If I can feel the unique presence of where I am standing then I’m likely to make a recording of it.  I’m discovering that within these highly local places is the deep feeling of something eternal – a music that hangs in the wind.  Often it’s enough to present a location recording as it happened and be happy that it conveys this sense of the local and the cosmic.  Other recordings invite me to enhance what I’m hearing with a sonic treatment that brings forward the cosmic element. I, like those before me, hear this cosmic depth in the presence of the drone.  My current technique for invoking the drone is by generating sustained resonance through the various pitch, tempo and presence evident in the location recording.  The world around us is so enlivened by these elements that it can be overwhelming at times to sort through the moment.  I find that this drone technique removes some detail and adds the depth required to suggest the eternal yet impermanent nature of a place and our lives within it.  Yes, wabi sabi sentiment in art and my melancholy disposition generally inform this body of work.  I’m happy to have arrived and hang out.

2) Describe any place in the world you have visited that really impacted your work.

A: I can best answer this by what I’m working on today.  A trip to Kenya in 1983 was a real ear opener for me.  Spent a couple days on the banks of Lake Baringo in the Rift Valley area.  At the camp was an old single-cylinder generator engine that ran in the evening.  What a wonderful slow tempo it turned at as it was surrounded by a huge night ambience that only Africa could provide.  Now, so many years later, I’m returning to this recording with hopes of making a beautiful piece from it.

3) What does a perfect day look like to you?

A:  I’m cool with sitting in the shade of a big old ponderosa tree with a double espresso and some sativa.