Sgsr_047

recorded 2019

These recordings were made during a trip through Chile—primarily in Santiago, Valparaíso, Concón, and Viña del Mar. Each location offered its own sonic imprint: from the residues of colonial architecture to the thrum of modern neoliberal urbanism, everything hums with layered contradiction.

Captured binaurally, these recordings are best experienced through high-quality headphones. The edits are minimal—removing only intrusive handling noise, wind overload, or moments that broke the spell. The dynamics remain largely untouched. Adjust your system accordingly.

field notes

[santiago] fountain at san christobal - recorded on our first day in santiago, this was captured near the san christobal monument, of some children playing in a fountain while we took a break from all the climbing in the heat.

[santiago] bar in bella vista - unfortunately, i lost my notes for most of these recordings, so i don’t have the name of this bar; i do know that i recorded it while we stopped for a drink in the bella vista neighborhood. 

[santiago] plaza in lastarria - this was recorded from the balcony of our apartment, there is a large plaza off of jose victorino lastarria, full of bars and restaurants. since i was placed a few stories above the plaza, i could get a good recording of the overall nighttime ambience while people ate and drank into the evening. 

[santiago] turbus station (interior) - we decided to book a bus trip to valparaiso, and while purchasing tickets, i made this recording of the mall interior of the turbus terminal. 

[santiago] metro underground - usually i don’t like messing with underground transport while i’m traveling, since you can’t see much while you’re underground, but we needed to escape the heat while traveling across the city. so i managed to get a pretty solid recording of what turned out to be a really pleasant metro underground experience.

[santiago] plaza de armas - while out sightseeing, we took a break to have some ice cream in the plaza de armas. i was trying to capture the sounds of a street preacher without getting close enough to have to interact, and i think it came out pretty well. 

[santiago] turbus station (exterior) - recorded in the turbus terminal while waiting for our bus to valparaiso. plenty of activity to capture here, from buses to people to dogs.

[valparaiso] apartment rooftop (dogs) - chile, in general, has a real problem with stray dogs. it seemed like they were literally everywhere we went. our first night in valparaiso, i went up to the roof of our apartment building to capture the insane amount of barking dogs, it seemed like you could hear them echoing across the entire city. i could have recorded hours of this.

[vina del mar] museo de fonck - when traveling, i always try to hit as many museums as possible, and this one was pretty interesting. mostly focusing on prehistorical artifacts, easter island culture, and for some reason, an enormous collection of various insects, this was a museum i would definitely recommend. i loved the audio ambience in this place, so i took a recording while walking around looking at the exhibits.

[concon] lunch in concon - another example of why losing your handwritten field notes is the worst; i can’t remember for the life of me where i captured this (outside of the general area). this was a great restaurant up the coast from vina del mar, outside of concon, where we stopped to have lunch. we were really blown away by some of the architecture in this region, i wouldn’t mind living here permanently!

[valparaiso] apartment rooftop (party) - on our last night in valparaiso, i went back up to the roof, and across the street, there was a party happening several floors above our building. for some reason they were singing and playing guitars and i tried my best to get a good recording, but the sound would sort of drift in and out on the wind, so it’s a bit hit or miss here.

[valparaiso] breakfast in cafe - i captured this in a very sketchy cafe where we had breakfast while waiting for our turbus back to santiago. i remember thinking there was a distinct chance that something bad could happen in this place, but fortunately nothing did. we had breakfast and went back to the bus station to wait.

[santiago] museo des derechos humanos pt. 1 - hands down one of the best museums i’ve been to in my entire life, i could have recorded in here all day long. there are exhibits with audio / video pretty much everywhere, and it’s all pretty amazing. this particular capture is one floor worth of exhibits, just trying to record as much as possible. 

[santiago] museo des derechos humanos pt. 2 - this capture is another floor worth of exhibits, including a wall size video projection of the end of the dictatorship in 1988. as is always the way, there is a playback of arvo pärt’s “spiegel im spiegel” running which conveys a certain level of emotional seriousness, so you can hear that running in the background here.

[santiago] museo des derechos humanos pt. 3 - in the exterior plaza of the museum was a temporary exhibit of indigenous human rights issues, and this recording was made in a full scale mockup of an indigenous village. i was literally the only person in the exhibit for a while, so of course i had to get a recording.

[santiago] museo des artes visuales - we arrived at this museum with less than an hour to go before they closed. oddly enough, there was nearly no art to be seen here. it was a very large space (audible in the recording) but with very little to fill it up. i recall thinking that perhaps they were in between exhibits or something. at least i managed to capture some of the ambience, even if the museum overall was pretty disappointing.

[santiago] costanera center tower - the costanera center is the tallest building in latin america, and the second tallest in the southern hemisphere. we took a trip up to the observation deck, and had a look around for a while. one thing that was pretty cool, and i captured in this recording, was the overhead audio playback, which would start whenever you stood near certain windows; the narration would explain what you could see from that vantage point in multiple languages. 

[santiago] monjitas 360 (exterior) - our final apartment in santiago was really nice, but located on a heavily trafficked and loud street. i basically grabbed this recording from the balcony before dinner.

[santiago] monjitas 360 (fans) - so because it was so hot, the apartment had a lot of fans running, and when they all got going, it sounded amazing. i am always a sucker for mechanized drones, and this was one of the best i’ve ever recorded. the shower noise was an unintentional side effect, but i think it contributes nicely.

[santiago] palacio des bellas artes (upstairs) - another day, another museum. this one is a huge space, with lots of huge art. i couldn’t believe the ambience in this place, so i took a nice long capture here. this is the upstairs of the space, which is a bit larger and more open than the downstairs space.

[santiago] palacio des bellas artes (downstairs) - this is the downstairs space, which i think has a rather different sonic characteristic. also, towards the end, i captured some very strange machine noise sound, unfortunately i can’t remember exactly what was causing this, still, overall a pretty solid recording.

This recording is issued under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-alike license.

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