hello,

this is the third in my series of field notes on Forager. before i get into it, i wanted to share a very nice article that my local newspaper, the Essex Reporter, wrote about me.

it was a real pleasure being able to talk about field recording, and specifically the places in Vermont that are sprinkled all throughout the album. talking about the process of collecting sounds made me realize how connected i’ve become to this place, my home, and how important it is to me for people to feel a connection to place through sound.

the way that we consume sound in a digital age is increasingly disembodied—streaming from a cloud, suggested via algorithmic playlists, totally removed from their original context (whether that be an album or other body of work).

i won’t spend too long on my pedestal here. i’ll leave it with this recommendation: listen to a record, front to back. record sounds on your phone from the ecosystem you live in and put it into your next song. learn about the history or an album or a song, where it came from. you won’t regret it. music is relational, because humans are relational.

last field note i promised to share a few demos that didn’t make the album. there’s so much material to pull from, but i managed to narrow down three from the same time period that i wanted to share.

first i wanted to share an unused field recording. in the interview i got to talk about my process a bit and reflected on how many of the natural sounds i record are at my house, in my backyard. for the past three years my partner and i have been rewilding our lawn, replacing grass with native flowers and shrubs. the birds and bugs have noticed and regularly make their presence known, which is delightful to hear.

this recording was taken off my back deck, in early morning hours (often called the “dawn chorus” in the birding world). about 5 or 6am, i went out with a microphone and started recording.

in the clip you’ll hear a gray catbird, american robin, chipping sparrow, song sparrow, and northern cardinal (the cardinal was the most boisterous this morning by far). there are other sounds, further away, acting as an ambient bed (the hum of crickets).

birds-home-dawn-chorus-240726-050553-edit by st. silva | alonetone

A track by st. silva

onto some demos. “demos” might not be the right word here, some of these were kernels of an idea that i ended up deciding not to pursue before spending too much time building a song around it.

the first is a blend of rhodes piano sounds and chickadee calls. i think this was probably a leftover loop that i created from a live performance, still saved to my modular synth memory, that i tracked for later in case i wanted to use it. the way that the loop repeats the chickadee call is still interesting to me, sort of weaving in and out with the rhodes, which has a much more mellow tone and character.

chickadee and rhodes by st. silva | alonetone

A track by st. silva

the next one is a strange one. i called it “haze” and i don’t remember why, but it has that feeling. there are some digital artifacts swirling around in here that give it an interesting texture i think. i don’t remember exactly how i made it, but it was some combination of a melodic loop being manipulated with modular synthesis. if i chose to do some more sound design and writing around this, it could have easily ended up on Forager. it has the same spirit i think.

haze by st. silva | alonetone

A track by st. silva

this last one, “panels”, is very drone inspired. probably too drony, which is why it didn’t end up making it to the album. i still like it, and love this kind of music, but it didn’t feel like the right thematic fit for this album. this is a little longer than the previous two clips, but there are some nice movements and interval shifts that happen after a minute or so that surprised me, in a good way.

panels by st. silva | alonetone

A track by st. silva

as with all the field notes, you can listen to all the clips i linked to above in the playlist field notes #3.

i’ll be back in your inbox sometime next week with issue #4, in which i’ll share a bit more about the melodic instruments and techniques i used on the album.

till then,

ben // st. silva