Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Tod Dockstader & David Lee Myers: Pond

269

Tod Dockstader & David Lee Myers: Pond

By

View read count
Tod Dockstader & David Lee Myers: Pond
Hit play on this one and prepare to immerse yourself in a supernatural universe. The electronic sound sculptures on Pond bear some resemblance to the real world events, insofar as you can discern insects, birds, and frogs popping in and out of the steaming mist, but for the most part this self-described "organized sound" collection is abstract, ethereal, and, well, extreme.

But first, a bit of background. Tod Dockstader is a veteran experimentalist whose primary work centered around manipulation of optical sound and tape recorders; this is his first new full-length recording since 1967. David Lee Myers, otherwise known as Arcane Device, assembled 1988's Engines of Myth (recently reissued by ReR on CD), a recording made from inputless "feedback machines." Myers convinced Dockstader to boot up a computer and explore the finer control and fidelity available through that medium, and after coming up with the idea of recording frogs and toads, he snuck around late at night with a mic and collected the source material for Pond.

That's just the beginning of the story, of course, because the only raw ambience appears (briefly) on the first track, "Crepitata." For the rest of the record, broken down into thirteen chapters, Dockstader and Myers scrubbed the source material, dopplered and reversed it and altered its speed, and came up with collages of processed sound. Who knows what else they did along the way—most likely the details will remain private—but it's all about inventing new relationships between man and nature at the same time as exploring the connections between man and machine.

The idea of using electronics to bring new life to ambient sound is clever if not brand new, and Pond is full of elements that are simultaneously familiar and alien. Once you've come to terms with the circular aspect of the concept—life enters machine and exits alive—you can spend hours with this recording and still be surprised by it. Headphones are recommended if you want to really get wet.

Visit David Lee Myers on the web and click here for a sound sample.

Note: click here for another amphibian review of a totally different nature.

Track Listing

Crepitata; Slow Marsh; Horsefly; Chorus; Surge; Glottalk; Assembly; Twango; Swarm; Bellpool; Springers; Pterygota; Corridor.

Personnel

Tod Dockstader and David Lee Myers, plus various unspecified amphibians.

Album information

Title: Pond | Year Released: 2004 | Record Label: ReR Megacorp

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.