Compositions » Pond

Pond is a collaboration between Tod Dockstader and David Lee Myers, born of a long written correspondence and a mutual affection for frogs between them which eventually spawned this programme of electronic/concrete pieces.

The pieces are derived almost entirely from field (and swamp) recordings of frogs - choral and solo - processed, manipulated and organised in a million ways. David Lee Myers released a number of recordings in the 1980s under the name Arcane Device, where the musical material was derived from almost uncontrollable feedback systems. In this recording, Dockstader used computers to manipulate the sounds for the first time, with the assistance of Myers, and recently remarked that he ‘realised that many of the old principles - slowing, speeding, pitch-change, reversal - were the same - but with much more control and better sound (and no tape hiss). Because it was faster and I could keep my belief in what I was doing, more fun.’

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