Environments 3: Dawn & Dusk at New Hope, PA

I am saddened to announce that this is my final publication on Avaxhome.
Alexpal (one of the moderators/owners(?) of Avaxhome) has started adding mirrors to my publications and the effect is that the number of downloads per day of my uploaded files dropped from about 100, down to 1, beginning the day after the mirror was added. I sent a message to Alexpal asking him to not add mirrors to my publications. He replied that he would not stop, that it was Avaxhome policy to mirror publications.

There has been much debate on this subject is other threads and I have expressed my views and my reasons for them: I do not support mirroring downloads when the publisher has requested no mirrors. But I do not make the rules on Avaxhome and I have failed to get them changed. There is a saying, “If you don't like the rules here, then leave.” So that is what I am doing. Until the rules change to respect the wishes of the uploaders — those people who make available the music, books, software and other items for sharing — I will be silent. --sunsponge

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Dawn & Dusk at New Hope, PA, from Syntonic Research.

From the booklet:
“The Magic of Psycho-Acoustical Sound
The dawn and dusk sounds superbly preserved on this CD are sounds which have been gradually vanishing from the North American countryside. Moreover, they are only available for a month or so, even if you happened to live in this secluded sector of Buck's County in eastern Pennsylvania. Dawn at New Hope recreates the aural environment of a beautiful morning in late spring, complete with magpies, owls, crows, doves, woodpeckers, insects and geese. Dusk at New Hope, recorded two months later at the very same spot, contains a superb recording of night insects in stereo syncopation. On the right channel you have nearby crickets. On the left channel you have distant mixed insects....”

“One of the most amazing aspects of environments is the the ability to control distracting noise with recorded sound. Basically, SR releases with a "white noise" content are most effective in this context.... There are many variations on these themes in the environments Series, each with specific characteristics which research has shown to be important to various personality types.”

From Amazon.com:

“

“Please Bring Back the "Environments" Series, on CD!” “"New Hope, PA" is perhaps the most beautiful of an aesthetically and technically unparalleled collection of "natural sounds" recordings known as the "Environments" series. This series, which puts other natural sounds recordings (/w or w/o music) to shame, was first issued in the 1970's on vinyl, using an advanced recording process that allowed the listener to hear every breath, every crackle, every ripple, every flap of a falling leaf, all painstakingly recording by expert audio artists. The excellent sound quality of the LP recordings cries out for a CD release (or even a vinyl release!), and the variety of sound captures in the dozen-odd albums reveals artistic imagination in selection as well as in recording: The lush and colorful orchestra of birds singing in "Optimal Aviary", the ebb and flow of "Ultimate Ocean", the intense beat and deep beauty and mystery of the most vital of anatomical organs in "Ultimate Heartbeat", "Tintinnabulation" (the chorus of soft high, medium and deep-pitched bells is wonderful to hear; the producers recommended you play it at any of the four LP speeds (16 2/3, 33 1/3, 45, and 78 rpm), as well as more traditional themes of rainstorms (that naturally calming hypnotic patter of water drops that for a time was the only sound the ailing WC Fields could go to sleep to), thunderstorms (NOT the relentless and tasteless crash-bang of a THX Dolby Sensurround hurl-you-out-of-your-chair cut-and-paste movie soundtrack, but a recording that faithfully depicts the artistic composition and orchestration of of a purely natural phenomenon, from the dead calm, to the light breeze, to the faint rumbles and cracklings far off in the distance, growing nearer and nearer, and nearer... Perhaps the least successful (as a repeat play "environmental recording") of the series was "Be-In", a fascinating and delightful capture of the sounds (not just the indicidual sounds, but again, the entire composition of interlaced sounds) one could hear at an authentic "hippy love-in" of the late '60's. Its only limitation was that because it included some human speech and other "artificial" sounds (bongo drums, whistles, shouts and the like) which we interpret differently from non-semantic-laden sounds (those of you who can hear the human voice as a natural phenomenon need not worry), it did not bear as much cyclic repetition as the rest of the works in the series. Those reviewers who report playing a single recording (such as "Rain") All Night Long are NOT exaggerating one bit. These recordings are genuinely "environmental" in the second sense, as sounds used to produce your own audio environment. I successfully used these recordings for a time to go to -- and stay -- asleep at a time in my life when I was too stressed even for medication to calm me down and alleviate my tension headaches. These recordings are good food and fine wine for the ears -- "New Hope, PA" in particular is as fundamentally beautiful an environmental piece of the American experience as Grant Wood's "American Gothic" painting, or Aaron Copeland's music. It is well worth savoring -- as are the rest in the series, which truly Ought to be re-release in an age when sound technology has finally caught up with the artistic ear.”

”

Tracklist:
01 Dawn at New Hope, PA
02 Dusk at New Hope, PA

Links updated 20 January 2010.