My Sound II: Duwamish Project

In 2005 filmmaker Patricia O’Brien told me about a documentary she was shooting on the Duwamish River. This waterway had gone from sacred site to shipping superhighway, and was polluted to the point of being declared a Superfund site by the Clinton Administration. Georgetown residents and tribal elders shared oral histories in the clips I saw. I brought my friends Tom Swafford and Robert Walker to Jack Straw for a day (or two?) of lightly-guided improv, and got come beautiful dark sounds. The doc was aborted before it was finished, so these tracks gathered a bit of dust. Here they are for posterity, along with some sound design, found sounds, and an early (1994) attempt to mimic a recording I’d made from a shortwave broadcast of All India Radio.