Jez Riley French's 4 Questions on Field Recordings: Kiyoshi Mizutani

Up until just a few years ago my interest in field recording was purely as a recordist myself. I'd picked up a few random CDs of natural sounds and of course a few examples of improvised music & sound work featuring field recordings came my way, but for a long time the only recordings you could buy were in the 'sounds of nature' catagory and there is something empty about much of that - the focus seemed always to be on the technical quality of the sounds captured, but that isn't how we hear in the real world anyway. When we listen we are influenced by thoughts, feelings and the visual aspects around us too. Sounds are evocative, not scientific for us. So, as a more human, more creative exploration of field recording began to evolve and become more abstract, the sound of nature got left on the new age shop shelves, with few artists / field recordist able to capture the emotive aspects of natural sound. One of the few who was and is able to do that is Kiyoshi Mizutani. Thankfully many other artist / recordists have now found a way back to natural sound too, but i'd go as far as to say that there are at least two titles in Kiyoshi's discography that stand as benchmarks for this area & will remain so. I refer to 'Yokosawa-iri' (cmf) and 'Scenery of the border' (and/oar). With these two, sadly out of print, releases Kiyoshi presents us with the sound of natural environments in a way that clearly marks the difference between someone who simply points a microphone and someone who is able to capture more than just the sound - something impossible to put into words. Its the difference between someone playing the notes from a score and someone who is able to express the music - there is something 'esle' involved.