Review | By Colin Lang / Musique Machine
Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World | Brian House
Brian House has put together something of an album, the contents of which really pass over anything resembling the possibility of a critical appraisal (more on this in a sec). The concept of Infrasound –– the auditory information that exists below the threshold of human perception – is a topic closely wed to larger concerns of situatedenss, environmental awareness, and the like. So when Brian House, a professor of such things, set out to construct microphones capable of capturing such phenomena, the die was essentially cast. In other words, House, fully cognizant of this fact, had no real control over what it is said microphones would relay. In order to render these findings perceptible, House used an old chestnut of tape recording: speed things up, which will de facto pitch things up to a frequency range that our little lugs can hold onto.
Now the point about being beyond the purview of any critical apparatus (I’ve been called worse) should begin to come into focus. How is one to make a judgment around the breeze in a forest, or the sound of waves crashing? „Ah, nice enough, but I prefer the way air moves through a more dense arrangement of trees.“ I am walking through the open door, I realize, but it is all to say that what is left to talk about here is House’s concept, and perhaps its implementation. […]