Field Notes, a Holly Waxwing moment

Holly Waxwing is a sound designer and composer based in Providence, RI. Holly’s latest project, ‘The New Pastoral’, is “…a painterly polyptych that stands apart from its contemporaries not only on merit of its sound, but also the strength and sincerity of its unifying theme and the dichotomy of pastoralism with the ultra-slick, commercial-skewing sound that PC Music is better known for,” writes Urvogel. Holly runs the sound design agency We Time Audio House and co-curated Noumenal Loom Records for the past 10 years. In addition, Holly is a regular contributor to citizen science efforts in the field of mycology. Holly’s haptic approach to sound is heavily informed by their ASD/SPD and sound has always had a synesthetic layer for them. 

We caught up with Holly on a walk through a tidal marsh to learn a bit more about the hi-fi nostalgia and synthesized super-nature that make up his pack. “Field Notes is a sonic distillation of 5 years of notes taken on Planet Terr in the Virgo Supercluster. There was a remarkable similarity between some of the flora, fauna, fungi and even topography found on Terr and on Earth. Until the dust settles on the phylogenetics of Terr, I’ve used adjacent English common names and Latin wherever possible for clarity. I had the most success implementing Wavetable and FM modalities when transcribing my notes, and I can only hope that they will prove as helpful to you as they have to me. Special thanks to OrangeTone for making my field notes more legible and to OT & Estle for the first study into their broader implications.”