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Toshiya Tsunoda, "Ridge of Undulation"
Tsunoda is one of my favorite artists working with fieldrecorded media mainly because of the way in which his body of work tests thedefinitions and possibilities of “environmental” sound or music.The typical Tsunodarecording, this one no exception, contains necessarily subtle combinations of nearlyuntreated outdoor recordings (bodies of water are recurring), the amplifiedvibrations of small metal or glass objects, and artist-generated sinewavetones. Through juxtaposition andalignment, Tsunoda prods questions concerning the significance of setting, thelimitations and changing patterns of human auditory awareness, and the basicphenomenology of sound, something everyone using field captures must engage,but something very dominant in Tsunoda’s work, often at the expense of whatwould seem either immediately or conventionally pleasant to the ear.
Ridge alternatesrelatively short tracks of different oceanfronts, including what is probablyboat engine “arrival” recordings, with the sounds of different vibratingmetals, stimulated by extreme frequencies and supplemented once with sinewave. Tsunoda’s focus here is much lessconceptually complex that on earlier works, like 2004’s Scenery of Decalcomania, where similar sound sourcing ended in agrand scrutinizing of environmental autonomy and the ear’s necessary brandingof auditory stimulus. On Ridge, the artist’s only provideddirection is one of comparison, in which the subtle complexities of the surfget aligned with the vastly scaled-down recordings of metal in vibration.
That the metallic sounds cannot be called “smaller” is onlythe start. The low, wavering rumbles andshrill wines of these metals uncannily create the forever unfolding vistas ofaquatic movement, though most impressively, at the proper volume, they soundabsolutely immense. As a recreationallistener, I am typically drawn to the field-captured sections of Tsunoda’sdiscs, but not so here, as his object recordings, if a bit less complex, are disproportionatelypowerful, eclipsing the subtleties of the frankly boring (in comparison toprevious works) Bay recordings.
Ultimately, I am attracted to Tsunoda’s body of work because,despite conceptual underpinnings and the rigor of his methods, an intenselistenable and repeatable nature shows itself, making later scrutiny andimmersion better possible. That I’vefound Ridge to be immediately lessappealing than other works is probably just the moment speaking, and at the artist’scontinual request, I am content to sit back and hear that moment change.
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