Archival Feedback: Soundscape of the South

Archival Feedback is a collaboration headed by Emile Blair Milgrim and Thom Wheeler Castillo, collecting the sounds that characterize South Florida and inviting local sound artists and musicians to create pieces inspired by and responding to their audio collection. The full 10-track album will be available May 2, and the cassingle will be available April 14. (The cassingle was for sale at the exhibit for $5.00 as well as a handful of test pressings for $20.00.)

With Miami as my backyard as I've grown up in south Florida, Saturday's presentation of the test pressing and cassingle from Emile Milgrim and Tom Wheeler Castillo's project Archival Feedback easily immersed me in an ethereal, cosmic and very familiar realm of sound. In Locust Projects' Sounding Room, a dozen people shared plastic cups of champagne on the floor as the product of a two-year art/music collaboration unfolded.

Starting as a research endeavor, Castillo's exploration of the history of South Florida and its perception as a dual world of swamp and city turned into a "field recording" pursuit accompanied by Milgrim. Both collected environmental sounds spanning from the east to west coasts; from urban neighborhoods to traffic to beaches and the Everglades. These sounds are familiar to anyone who has lived in Miami for years or grown up here, but when taken out of context, have become arrangements of percussive patterns and mysterious melodies through a collaborative "call and response" method. On side A of the release, five field recordings create a sonic map of SoFL. Side F is comprised of five local artists' interpretations of the audio as original compositions. These five "songs" span from experiments of spatial illusion and texture to workable dance tracks. The featured artists include (in order): Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, io.ko, Fsik Huvnx, Dim Past, and Coral Morphologic (composed by Jared McKay). The cassingle includes a recording from Milgrim and Castillo titled Eleventh Street Station Whistle on side A, and an inventive, catchy track from Ortrotasce on side F.

After the test pressing played through, we moved to the front room and watched as Castillo performed Eleventh Street Station and Milgrim followed performing an improvised orchestration of sounds not on the record. Utilizing a mix of objects, traditional instruments and distortion tools, the audio experiments were demonstrated in the physical phase of the project. After releasing several editions of Archival Feedback featuring Castillo's handmade prints, Milgrim and Castillo plan to make all their field recordings public domain and continue the call and response forum to anyone who wants to create music out of their audio.

Next to the Archival Feedback setup, Felecia Chizuko Carlisle's string instrument installation hung in the front room next to several bows and drumsticks, inviting patrons to create sounds and experience what she did as she composed her response. Several thin steel strings were wrapped and clipped onto hollow metal beams in a way that allowed a variety of tones; some scratchy and loud, some smooth and radiant, some sinister and some sorrowful. Visitors were tapping, sliding, and rubbing the tools on every part of the metal surface, resulting in a cacophony of loud, haunting, unusual sounds.

Felecia is pictured furthest to the right. Before the test pressing was played, she was here explaining her thoughts about her instrument to some participants.

Emile Blair Milgrim is owner of Other Electicities label and managing partner of Sweat Records. Learn more about OE here.
Thom Wheeler Castillo is co-director of Turn-Based Press and a professional printmaker. Read about the organization here.

Look for a review of the release itself in May!
If you missed this exhibit, another one will occur May 9 in a location still to be determined. Visit Other Electricities' Facebook to keep tabs.