Review | By textura
The Nomadic Listener | Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
The Nomadic Listener is a field recordings release with a difference. Rather than being a pure audio document of international locales, it’s an augmented book project by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay that ties sixty written reflections and abstract images to unedited field recordings, with audio details accessed from a QR code included inside the handsome volume (the digital component is available from Gruenrekorder, the book from Errant Bodies Press in Berlin). In another iteration the work might have been titled The Nomadic Listener, Viewer, and Thinker, so inextricably bound are the text and visuals to the sound dimension. Here’s a project that fully engages the senses and mind, so much so it renders the possibility of distraction moot. As one absorbs the text and image for each part as the field recording plays, one naturally considers the connections between them and reflects upon Chattopadhyay’s own musings. […]