"Ol-olool-O"

Chris Watson's "Ol-olool-O" from the album "Weather Report" was a very dimensional track. I feel it's a very immersive track utilising close recordings and atmos tracks to make you feel as if you are there as it progresses and the exotic sounds create the rainforest atmosphere. There are sounds that pass by the listener - cattle are driven along, the sounds of cattle bells and the foreign languages being spoken by the drivers as they pass by behind the cattle instil the feeling of the movement. It's a nice moment that disrupts the previous peace that had been built up with forest sounds where the listener feels comfortably solitary, this disruption carries the piece forward and makes the listener more aware of an active environment.

There's a nice transition to a close up recording of flies as if they are buzzing round the listener, which again reintroduces the immersive techniques of the sound artist. Finally an aeroplane in the distance gives a sense of a far off civilisation from what we've been experiencing.

To create the rainforest, an atmos track was used which incorporated cricket sounds but there are many other sounds that create a sense of the exotic such as the first noise of an ox. The final piece has many layers of sound that are introduced and faded as we progress, including those of the flies and cattle.

I liked this piece because I felt completely immersed in the space created by the exotic sounds and could imagine the cattle walking by as I heard the noises. The voices of the cattle drivers created an interesting dynamic by introducing other humans but still maintaining a distance from them as a listener. I pictured them as I listened but I didn't get a sense of character because they were talking amongst themselves and in a language I don't understand; I felt this worked as it made you feel that you are there watching them. The piece is successful in creating a dimensional world in the audience's mind by using dynamic recordings and layering to place the listener in it's space.