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A friend recently remarked that no matter where you are in Cambodia, someone will be using power tools. Add to this the Makita choir weddings, funerals or a plain old karaoke session, and it’s pretty hard to image a world that’s tranquil and natural.
Adrian Stoeger, self-proclaimed sonographer, is out to redress this with his release Sounds From The Cambodian Wild, available through Bandcamp. With sounds including gibbon calls, the cries of great hornbills, croaking frogs and the lapping of waves on the shores of Koh Thmei, Adrian’s recordings offer a natural respite from the Penh’s manufactured cacophony. The Advisor caught up with Adrian to ask him about the release, starting with the most obvious question:
What exactly is a sonographer?
Usually people going out with material to record sounds are called ‘field recordists’. However, this sounds too technical and most people can’t associate anything with the term, so by using ‘sonographer’, I’m hijacking a [medical] term in an attempt to place audio recordings in the same context as photography.
What attracted you to recording the Kingdom’s natural sounds?
What attracted me were simply Cambodia and its natural habitats. I am German, grew up in France and arrived in Phnom Penh from Berlin in 2011, where I had been working in the music industry for the last few years, but I was growing bored just working from my desk.
At one point a friend with Save Cambodia’s Wildlife asked me if I could help them to make a CD of recordings of Cambodia’s natural habitats. That led to a one-week expedition into the Virachey National Park and Cardamom Mountains. And that was it. I knew this was something I wanted to do.
Also, making nature recordings is a great reason to get out of the city and organise trips you’d never consider otherwise. How many people in Cambodia have spent several nights in the jungle, sleeping in hammocks and surrounded by the forest?
What field equipment do you use and what do you do with those sounds once you’ve captured them in the field?
I usually use an Audio-Technica shotgun microphone, which can record sounds from the front. Back at home I import everything into my computer and start listening. This is a very important part and often a great recording will be discarded because I can hear something in the distance; I simply don’t want any human sounds! Once I’ve identified a good sound, I then start working on it.
Ideally the sound will stand as it is and I will do nothing; sometimes I increase the overall volume a bit, but that’s it! I don’t add any effects, like reverb, for more space. The ambience of the forest is like it is.
How do you decide on the sounds you use? Do you go out seeking a sound, or simply use what you capture?
It’s very easy: the sound must be compelling, the quality of the recording must be impeccable and there must be no noise pollution from other sources, and there must be at least a few minutes of material. Also, the ‘feel’ of the recording is very important. I want people to enjoy listening to it, bringing nature closer to them. I will sometimes leave out cicada recordings that are interesting, but so loud and high-pitched most people wouldn’t enjoy them. That screens out about 90% of recordings.
Is there a ‘wild sound’ out there that you were compelled to capture?
There was. It took me three trips to Virachey to get the gibbons the way I wanted. Three trips to Ratanakiri for five minutes of gibbons! But hey, as far as I know, nobody has recorded them in this quality in Cambodia. Soon after I was staging a listening session at a Meta House. Afterwards a man came and told me that he simply couldn’t hold back, he had tears flowing while listening to the gibbon calls. These wonderful, endangered primates have made their voice heard – that’s the greatest satisfaction I can get.
Sounds From The Cambodian Wild is available for $7 at adrianstoeger.bandcamp.com. Get 25% off before September 13 by entering the code ‘advisor’ at checkout.