Doug Haire

Interview with Doug Haire

Q: 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 the deep feeling of something eternal within these highly local places – 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. Like those before me, I 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 presences evident in the location recording. These elements so enliven the world around us that sorting through the moment can be overwhelming at times. 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.

Q: 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. I spent a couple of days on Lake Baringo’s banks in the Rift Valley area. An old single-cylinder generator engine at the camp that ran in the evening. What a wonderful slow tempo it turned at as it was surrounded by a huge night ambiance 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.

Q: 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.

Campsites — Doug Haire

by Guillermo Escudero – Loop

(translated from Spanish)

Doug Haire is an experienced sound artist with 30 years as a recording engineer and producer. He has credits in something like 400 albums and eight albums of his authorship.

He’s a member of Seattle’s Phonographer’s Union, a collective of sound artists, composers, and recordists who improvise live in real time with unprocessed field recordings.

He founded the Sonarchy radio show in Seattle 22 years back, and he has produced hour-long live broadcasts that provide avant-garde musicians with a space to perform, experiment and develop their ideas.

“Campsite” collects field recordings such as the sounds of a train horn, a campfire, a barking of a dog, while thick layers of drones are the backdrop for this environment in the outskirts of the city.

Silence is also an element in this album because behind those minimalist processed sounds. There is a pristine, pure space on which our listening is focused. For example, on “Campsite # 16 River Donner und Blitzen” a subtle, heavenly choir hovers in the environment as birdsongs and streams of water complete this bucolic image. The flip side of this album is the haunting atmosphere of “Jackblock Campsite” and the track that opens this album, “Campsite Nocturne #3”. This album displays a soundscape rich in nuances and atmospheres.