Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Kozmické louky | Magdaléna Manderlová
The amazing Gruenrekorder label follows up last year’s Sounds of the Wetlands, one of our top field recording albums of 2025, with a pair of water-based releases. Kozmické louky is a further investigation of wetlands and their surrounding environments, while the extended work Ghostly Waters takes a deep dive into the River Calder and its rich biophony. We’ll be covering one today and the next one tomorrow. Magdaléna Manderlová‘s Kozmické louky was recorded over the course of five years at the Polish border of the Czech Republic. Once endangered, this natural floodplain has begun to return to life; yet the larger crisis of climate change continues to threaten its stability. For now, the artist invites listeners to reflect on the intertwined lives of its inhabitants: creatures of water and air, an extensive biosystem dependent on the health of the wetlands. “Probouzení” (“Awakening”) introduces us to these residents, who create a dense thicket of sound. In this piece, the traffic is also close enough to be heard, a constant reminder that even protected spaces have boundaries. In “U soutoku” (“At the Confluence”), one can hear human voices, though the flowing water is the main character. Birds galore dominate “Intenzita” (“Intensity”); the title is well-chosen. While it’s difficult to estimate by sound alone, there seem to be hundreds of birds, all communicating at once. If only this piece were a bit longer! In contrast, individual fowl are heard flapping their wings in the subsequent piece, along with a high-whistling creature whose cry is like that of air escaping from a balloon. “Léto” (“Summer”) introduces swarms of bees, who are both pollinators and food, nestled in the center of the food chain, while rain falls gently at the end of Side A, covering all with sweet white noise, only to be interrupted by a foreboding motor. […]