A 18 minute walk in nature that doesn't exist. This Hyper Memory Installation recording consists of 4 turntables and 8 needles playing field recording records, mostly from the Folkways label, of the outdoors of various places in the world. From the rainy season in India to the sunrise in Pennsylvania, the dense combination of these records is meant to create a place that never will be. Different micro-climates emit different sonic events and in this Hyper Memory Installation recording Maria tries to merry them all together into a sound collage that is best experienced in headphones.
Accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Jordi Wheeler on grand piano, this 18 minute walk never made it onto their Takuroku release in 2021.
Hyper Memory Installations, est. 2012 by Maria Chavez:
Hyper-memory Installations, or HMI for short, refers to Maria's specific composing practice that creatively reconfigures field recordings, play back technology (like vinyl, cassettes, etc.) that contains field recordings, reenactments of past events or any narrative documentation that deals with documentation of the past in society.
HMI’s takes these audio memories (or .wav files) and layers them in various audibly dense configurations on a DAW (Maria uses REAPER).
The composing act of placing multiple tiers of audio documentation or “layering” audio snapshots/ documentation multiple times within a DAW format can be reimagined as creating a conceptually jam packed day, hence the use of the word “hyper”.
Placing many different moments, literally, on top of each other within a DAW format sonically forms a new ‘memory’ for the listener that is hearing all of the audio snapshots for the first time in this reconfiguration.
You can read more of Maria's writings about Hyper Memory Installations here:
www.e-flux.com/architecture/survivance/397525/too-much-reality/
released May 9, 2022
Recorded at The Kitchen in 2020 on 4 turntables and 8 needles
Jordi Wheeler on grand piano