From the moment I first read about this album on the Aquarius Records mail order list, I knew I had to own it. I didn’t include it in my Friday Top Ten of “outsider” music because I didn’t want to spoil this surprise for you fine readers. I found a tiny sliver of information about the record label behind this album (Computer Scientist Recordings), but I have no way of knowing if this album is still in-print. If someone can find evidence that it is, I’ll remove the download link. Until then, please enjoy!
Bob L. Sturm has received numerous degrees in computer music, and specializes in signal processing and communications (in particular, “sparse approximation and signal representation”). His website states that he is continuing his research into this area as a Chateaubriand Fellow in Paris, France. There is no information about Music From The Ocean on his personal website, so here’s the review from Aquarius Records that inspired me to buy the album. I don’t know about you, but I was hooked from the first sentence.
“Bob Sturm attaches microphones to buoys to record different oceanic events. These events translated into sound become gorgeous deep drones, and haunting alien soundscapes. Right up there with the singing telephone wires of Alan Lamb or the subtle vibrations recorded by Toshia Tsunoda. A natural phenomenon that can be studied and explored as sound. That would be enough right there, since the sounds speak for themselves. Gorgeous shimmery ripples, dark muted metallic buzz, if we didn’t tell you, you’d probably believe this was some strange limited drone cd-r or a new release from Jonathan Coleclough or Andrew Chalk. But Sturm is a scientist, and these sounds are just one part of his study of the ocean, the atmosphere and their behaviors. So the booklet is packed with serious scientific data, graphs, measurements, algorithms and photos. Included is a research paper AND a Flash presentation on the “sonification of ocean buoy spectral data” originally presented at the 2002 International Conference On Auditory Display held in Kyoto, Japan. Holy crap. This is some dense stuff. But even if the science is way over your head, or all you want is some deep dark mysterious music, then dig in. The track lengths tend to be short, but they manage to blend into long stretches of drifting dreamy drone, very minimal and soft focus, many of the tracks have a strange metallic tang, that sounds more like some alien reverb, giving the drones a steel string like buzz, a few tracks are much more active, high end hiss, and prickly fuzz, but for the most part, the oceanic data translates into huge cavernous rumbles, delicate glistening murmurs, or soft billowing clouds of whirring vibration. So completely captivating. And for the drone obsessed among you, absolutely essential!”
Bob L. Sturm
Music From The Ocean
MegaUpload DL Link
Selected Tracks:
f = 15000n^0.1 – 10360
f = cumsum(randn(1,64))
a = 1.0
dur = 12 ms
storms, 029 and 071 200101-200102
