Doug Haire is a master musician and composer whose instruments are usually field recording devices, tape machines, and digital audio workstations. He has engineered and produced ten billion albums for other artists over the years, and has a deep catalog of field-recording- and found-sound-based works that I strongly encourage you to dive into. Sometimes he goes out into the world and gathers his own recordings, which he uses as raw materials for his – often place-based – compositions (see Vol. 51’s “Ilwaco“), and sometimes he finds recordings made for other purposes and turns them into new works.
“Holocene #5” is from the latter category – although there may be some Haire-generated field recordings involved as well. The primary voices are a solo organist – possibly a church recording from somewhere/somewhen? – and a letter-by-tape, which mainly seems to consist of the woman who created it talking about the fact of its existence. (Which makes me wonder, when people first started sending letters did they often write about the phenomenon of putting pen to paper, sending it through the mail, etc.? I’m sure a lot of early emails [my own included] were mostly about how cool it was to be sending an electronic message! Through the wires!) These elements complement each other well. The bed of inspirational organ music provides some playful gravitas (is that a thing?) to the speaker’s words, and her voice gives us something to latch onto while the music blurs by. A little over a minute in, another voice starts to sneak in, crickets in the night singing their crickety song. Gradually the voice fades away, then the organ drops out; all human-generated sound has disappeared and we’re left outside, staring up at the stars, listening to our own breath. I sincerely hope the title of this piece indicates that it’s one of a series, because if it is I want them all.