Chad Crouch - Columbia Lowlands Soundwalk (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/88]

Chad Crouch’s soundwalks fuse immersive binaural recordings—made while walking through a sound-rich natural environment—with his elegantly simple instrumental scores. Columbia Lowlands Soundwalk captures the reverberant ancient calls of Sandhill Cranes wintering along the Columbia river, pairing them to tender, evocative, melodic performances.

I just want to spend a little time talking about two things related to the release today of my album Columbia Lowlands Soundwalk. 1) My approach to field recording and, 2) A Vancouver Lake Lowlands historical overview.

One thing I should clarify is “Columbia Lowlands” is a place name of my invention for the album title. Vancouver Lake Lowlands sounded, frankly, provincial and vaguely backwater-ish to me. This is the opposite of what I hoped to convey, as you will find. Also, this is the first in a five part soundwalk series covering this region, to roll out over the next 10 weeks. So with that out of the way, please feel free to roll the excerpted audio and read on!

My Approach to Field Recording

In a word, it’s escapist.

When I first thought to record my walks start to finish, it was in large part a response to getting frustrated with gear placement, set-up times and the invariable intrusions (aircraft, motor vehicles, trains, landscape maintenance machinery, chatty hikers and so on). Moreover, once it was up and rolling, a sense of tedium could sometimes creep in while I remained nearby, quietly minding the recorder.

In contrast, the first few soundwalks that I made were mostly faithful to the whole of what I heard on the walk. I didn’t cut out the hikers, helicopters, and so on. I would dial down the low frequency hum of the city, but I didn’t remove it entirely. Just a light cleaning, if you will.

As I added new albums to the series, and my audience grew, I often found myself rationalizing removing more and more sound intrusions, to the extent that I was editing the recordings to effect a pre-industrial ideal; Just nature, hold the people and machines.

Recording at Vancouver Lake Lowlands brought this challenge into sharp focus, given there’s every form of transportation (boat, train, and motor vehicle) routed along the river on both sides, as well as a steady stream of aircraft coming and going from Portland International Airport and Vancouver’s Pearson Field.

Vancouver Lake Lowlands and the greater region—including Sauvie Island and Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge—is a magnificent kingdom of birds come wintertime! Snow Geese can number in the several thousand. Canada Geese and Cackling Geese as well. The impressive Tundra Swan, Trumpeter Swan and Sandhill Crane are not hard to come by in numbers. The largest Great Blue Heron and Great Egret rookeries on the Columbia are in the Vancouver Lake Lowlands and on Sauvie Island. And we haven’t even started on the ducks. All kinds of ducks! So, planes be damned, I had to at least try to get some decent field recordings.

Come winter I find myself craving the riotous, gorgeous, pandemonium of a huge number of geese taking to the air. You may not feel the same way, but I know I’m not alone. The sound, as calamitous as it is, actually has a very calming effect on me for some reason. Maybe it’s hard-wired into me. Humans have always listened for the presence of birds as an indicator of resources and a healthy ecosystem. I find the honking of geese to be reassuring. I hear: It’s okay. Don’t worry. Life is abundant!

Tracklist:
01. Crouch- Part 1, Lowlands Medley
02. Crouch- Part 2, Shillapoo Echo
03. Crouch- Part 3, Sandhill Cranes
04. Crouch- Part 4, Aloft
05. Crouch- Part 5, Through The Mist
06. Crouch- Part 6, Geese
07. Crouch- Part 7, All the Creatures
08. Crouch- Part 8, Lowlands Segue
09. Crouch- Part 9, Alone
10. Crouch- Part 10, Together
11. Crouch- Part 11, A Thousand Wings
12. Crouch- Part 12, Listening
13. Crouch- Part 13, Wild Din
14. Crouch- Part 14, Patterns
15. Crouch- Part 15, The Call
16. Crouch- Part 16, The Ancient Choir
17. Crouch- Part 17, Shilapoo Reverie
18. Crouch- Part 18, Lowlands Refrain
19. Crouch- Part 19, Instincts
20. Crouch- Part 20, Walking Back


Thanks to the Original customer!