Audio
The audio samples below represent the current form of my work.
I am mainly concerned with interrogating the constructed-ness of field recording based composition through the use of obvious edits, noise, improvisation, and analogue processing techniques. And in performance, I like to explore the physical spectacle of the sound-making process — to include the body in the experiment, showing the imperfect edge of the composer’s hand.
Listen:
Dinosaurs
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Dinosaurs contains recordings of unprocessed sounds including my cats, some local Brooklyn Sparrows, the ocean with birds (from the Outer Banks of North Carolina) and some sampled birds from an Audubon CD. The layering and sometimes-hard edits are intended to comment on the constructed-ness of “nature” recordings.
Everyday Radiation
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To capture the sounds for this piece, I used an electric guitar as the medium. I passed its pickups in front of my computer, my computer monitor, speakers, CD burner, lamps, printer, pencil sharpener, cell phone and anything else that had current. The sound was amplified by a distortion pedal and augmented somewhat in Protools.
OverDriver II
This piece was inspired by a Fender Rhodes piano in need of some repair. The intention was to create a piece about listening to the instrument and not its notes as such. This (the third and final) section of the work also includes non-musical sounds: pre-recorded water sounds, a wineglass, a wind chime, some howling winter wind, and the sounds of the tynes played with a wrench from inside the instrument.
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SSSeaport/Peking Squeak
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SSSeaport/Peking Squeak is based on a recording made at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan standing under the gangplank of a former merchant ship (now a floating museum) The Peking. Perception subtly shifts in this work as the hypnotic squeak continues.
Zion Water
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Based on a recording made of a drainpipe in Zion National Park in Utah, this piece is constructed by processing the original recording in several different ways, all analog. By routing the signal through various pieces of analog equipment, the sound of the original is shifted and distorted.
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Jonny Farrow
Musique Acoustique et Ecologique
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This disk is a collection of the above field recording based works plus through-composed instrumental works based on location/instrument-specific improvisations. Includes the first two movements of Suite for Broken Rhodes and Sketches of a Groaning Building, a piece for doublebasses and subtle building sounds.
Tracks:
1-3. Suite for Broken Rhodes
4. SSSeaport — The Peking Squeak
5. Dinosaurs
6. Sketches of a Groaning Building
7. Everyday Radiation
8. Zion Water
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