Some time ago I bought a curious device from SOMA the electronic sound laboratory of Ukrainian-born sonic innovator Vlad Kreimer. The device is called Ether and Vlad designed it for hearing the invisible electromagnetic frequencies that surround us but which we don’t consciously sense - we can’t see, feel, touch, taste or hear them.
Ether is a handheld object, a little black box, that contains a magnetic antenna and an integrated electronic antenna. There are two thumb wheels on the side - one for volume, the other for frequency tuning. A pair of metal nubs can be used for direct contact with surfaces. Ether can detect and sonify low-frequency magnetics as well as high frequency radio signals.
This episode of sonic sketchbooks is built entirely from sounds detected by Ether as I wandered about the streets of my local neighbourhood. Many of the sound sources were evident - of particular interest were door entry panels - but many sounds were spatially definitive fields that I could walk in and out of but which had no determinable generative origin.
The composition time-smears and overlays excerpts from an hour long recording I made on a 3km roundtrip walk on the morning of Wednesday 18 August 2021. It’s an unusual sonic space, one we’re seldom exposed to and have been culturally trained to dislike - the noise-sound generated as by-product of our technocentric lifestyles that is usually intentionally filtered out of our communication systems. The noise that gets in the way, feels somewhat dystopian, reminds us of entropy and chaos, or doesn’t stir helpful emotional response in the way that favoured music might.
But spending some time with these strange sounds usually banished into silence, sonifying the invisible energetic presences in which we're constantly bathed, opens interesting possibilities in the sonic imaginary.
You can find out more about SOMA and explore the podcast series in the episode guide at sonicsketchbooks.net
