marimbas at lorimer and metropolitan

victims of landmines

Someone told us that they sometimes let cows roam free in the fields around Angkor Wat. The reason being, there was a good chance it would set off a landmine. This story and another about tourists being able to fire artillery guns at live animals seemed true. Granted, I never actually saw either occur, but with a gruesome historical backdrop of killing fields and  a school turned torture chamber I have a hard time thinking its only a myth.

Cambodia had stories like these, but then suddenly stories that intertwined and brought the tone back up to a major key. Stories of the survivors and the people that make it a wonderfully inviting and peaceful place.

This field recording is from a path along the perimeter of Angkor Wat. It’s a songs I captured by a band of landmine victims. Providing that I can restore some of the parts of the tape, this will be the first in a series of sounds from Cambodia.

Canal Street

Erhu performer at Canal Street with the 5 and 6 train passing.

Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge

Undercurrent car noises, wooden planks, birds chirping, helicopter passing by, bicycle bells, different languages, wind-restraint, and cellular intra-sound.

On the coast of Izu

About 40 minutes south of Atami, Japan: Truck coming and going, man running, bluff body noise from a passing jet, two or three cicadas (possibly higurashi) and what looked like a blue thrush.

Commemoration of the 1987 Uprising in Lhasa

Prayer, chanting, police sirens, drum circle, breaking down the farmers market, cell phone disturbance, trucks, and traffic in Union Square tonight.

http://www.tibetanyouthcongress.com/

footsteps down the stairs of my apartment and out the front door.

everyday for the past week.

a flag pole in the LGA flight path

Just before 6am. Birds chirping, pigeons flapping, wind, planes, cars, trucks, and a motorcycle passing.