Ears To The Ground: Adventures in Field Recording & Electronic Music

by Ben Murphy

For the biggest artists to the most underground, field recordings have become the vital spark of electronic music. Whether documenting nature, sampling the city or capturing the atmosphere of archaeological sites, musicians are using found sounds to make sense of our world. Ears To The Ground explores the relationship between electronics, landscape and field recordings in the UK, Ireland and around the globe, discovering how producers and artists evoke the natural world, history and folklore through sampled sounds.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

288 pages, Paperback

Published June 22, 2024

Reviews

[Marek Kruszkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most up to date book on the subject, consists mostly of interviews with occasional interludes and a comprehensive 'to listen' list in the end.

Especially interesting for me were interviews with Stuart Fawkes from Cities and Memory, Lawrence English, Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, Oleh Shpudeiko aka Heinali.

And yeah, finally interview about Kyiv and it's sounds done properly!

If you interested in field recording per se or want to listen to some new music that utilises recorded sounds in numerous creative ways - this is the book you're looking for.

[⏺ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few of the chapters are really good (e.g. the ones on Matmos and Lawrence English). Some, especially in part one where often many artists are lumped together in a chapter, are less in depth, and it also depends on the music choices – some artists are just more eloquent than others. The music selection is a bit odd, and a lot of contemporary work based on field recordings is left out, but obviously this wasn't meant to be fully comprehensive.

[Peter Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Lots of really great interviews with compelling artists, and explores a lot of different ways of thinking about field recording pragmatically and philosophically, but has a tendency to drift into repetitive musical mad libs when describing individual pieces, which ends up being a huge portion of the book.

Bonus points for using the word tintinnabulations.

Probably best utilized as a primer on essential recordings/artists in a niche but deep genre.

[Noah Sterba · Rating 5 out of 5]

nerdy & niche & awesome. just what i was hungry for. learned about many different artists (mostly from the UK) & how they approach using field recordings in their work. time to get out there & record some bugs.

[Luís Barreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having listened to some of the mentioned and interviewed artists on the book, I wasn't familiar with the concept of field recording in a compositional/sonic/musical sense.

While I'll admit - and this would be my main negative criticism - some of the interviewees delved into the pretensious side of things, Ben Murphy did a marvelous job mapping out (both literally and metaphorically) this whole sound universe I thoroughly believe more people should be aware of.

As my first music read of the year that was not biographical or a memoir, Murphy eases the reader into being familiar with a variety of terms and mechanisms used in field recording in a detailed way that not only captivates, but projects the reader into a different time and space. Pacing was good, leaving some of the most interesting chapters to the final stretch, and Murphy's guidance through the uninitiated in field recording was immensely helpful.

Picked up this book on a recent trip to Paris, on the 'Balades Sonores' record store in Montmartre, without knowing what to expect. Glad I picked it up, giving me not only a better understanding, but a whole different perspective on electronic music in general, and making you want to delve into the subtle nuances it brings along.

[Macy Hare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Made me appreciate electronic music more and I love the connections he makes between music, nature and politics