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.