[Af_List] Af_List Digest, Vol 19, Issue 25

[Sam Hamilton]

hi af folks,

sorry i havent read any of the last months postings, but from this one it
appears theres some great stuff going on!!! Jon Dale, welcome to NZ, sorry i
cant be there.

anyhow, im just writing in quickly to say hello and give some details of
some of my recent activities here in South America.

i´ll keep it musical.
im in Manaus, Amazona, Brazil right now, desperately waiting for my boat
outa this utter shit hole with only one oddly redeeming factor, the best
vegetarian resturauant on earth.
before now i have just spent 2 weeks in the jungle, in a lodge with now
power lines, telephone, cellphone coverage or internet with 9 other super
amazing artists recording sounds, hanging out, exploring the forests,
drinking and.... eating more eggs and fish than i have ever eaten im my life
and endlessly descussing, talking and workshopping a huge range of issues to
do with music, sound etc etc.
this is the first year the Mamori Soun Project (directed by Francisco Lopez)
moved from being an open attendence workshop for anyone interested to a more
focused invitation based residency style workshop with only experianced
folks. a move which apparently has been extremely successfull apon the
others, which, i have absolutely no reason to dispute as it seemed to the an
incredible mix of people with an incredible wealth of experiences etc etc
which was a constant source of thriving stimulation for everyone.
the group consisted of people from the Bristol, Seattle, New York, Buenos
Aires, Madrid, Vallencia, Athens, Grenoble, Montreal and me from Auckland.
with such a massive bredth of different methodologies, philosophies,
practices, equipment, personalities and ideas the group was successful in
not having a single moment of contention anywhere and infact i feel led to a
huge ammount of stimulation discussions which naturally bleed far from the
scheduled workshop and discussion periods and into many long nights of
endless discussion, and sometimes complete nonsense.
it was really great to get 10 people who all in their own way are involved
in there musical/social/political worlds and communities and completely
islolate them for 2 weeks from all of that. we had an immensely good time,
super fun, a great deal of friendships were formed, many of which no doubt
will result in many fruitful artistic endevours in the future. i have plans
to work in something with someone already. francisco also has plans to
release some sort of compilation of works created from the workshop at
somestage.
i dont think that things could have gone any better really.
oh, apart from arriving in Manaus with cronic tropical food poisoning and
having to go to hospital.
as for the forests, holy fucking shit.
nothing but intoxicatingly complex, dynamic, thriving acoustic chaos that
somehow symbiotically just works to form rich evolving mozaics of
soundscapes rich in interwoven textures. despite an often intense seemingly
dense wall of sound, you can hear clearly for huge distances, bird calls
hundreds of miles apart, howler monkeys 10s of kilomentres away. its bizarre
coming from a city where you cant hear half the distance you can see. here
its the completel] opposate, you can hear clearly far further than you can
see. infact if it want for sound, you could be mistaken for thinking the
forests where almost completely empty of life other than trees, ants and
hundreds of different butterflies (one we found was twice the size of my
hand).
and NO FUCKING TRAFFIC NOISE
infact it was the longest virtually all of us had gone without hearing the
sound of traffic. quite an incredible experience which probably greatly
inthuenced all of our seemingly constant good moods.
although, admittently, i was quite relieved for a while there to get back to
the city and hear the familar blankets of noise cities generate (which,
although i dont like to hear all the fucking time, does have a very special
palce within my heart).

anyhow, everyone has gone home now and im still here. of to Peru for further
recording ventures, this time in primary rain forests,,mmmmm.
also to the Andes for a rest, some mountains, coca chewing and a completely
different set of acoustic parameters, oh, and no more fucking condensation
on my fucking microphones!!!!!
looks as though i  am going to have a good show in Lima. am also thinking of
heading to Buenos Aires now at the end of the trip for a few weeks as i have
a number of contacts there and there seems to be alot of really interesting
things i can get involved with there musically.

oh, i ended up missing my show in Rio de janerio becuase Airolineas
Argentinas got me there 35 hourse behind schedule. apparently i had a good
sized audiance impatiantly waiting for me to as at first i was just going to
make it even with a days delay, but no, 24 hours delay wasnt quite enough
for the airlne company apparently, they had to detour to the wrong city and
loose my luggage. welcome to South America ay.

best
Sam
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