The beauty in Lo-Fi

I'm listening to an mp3, that was ripped from vinyl, recorded at a concert 4000 miles away, in a country that speaks a language I don't understand. I can hear the imperfections in that vinyl, the hissing and popping as the needle winds its way steadily across this much revered petroleum based product. I can hear the breath of the singer. I can hear the barely whispers of the audience as they listen, afraid to breathe. Clearly, this isn't an ideal listening situation. Free from the sterility of big budget studios, and the perfection of pro-tools; take after take, edited and cut and pasted and polished, striving for auditory perfection. But somehow,the lack of that polish doesn't matter. After all the compression and signal degradation between that singers lips, his fingers, and my ears, I can still hear his might. The message is translated across these mediums, across land, sea, and time. I understand.

The recording in question is a collection of songs by Phil Elverum.
The place was Copenhagen.

The next time you listen to a record, cd, or tape, listen to the way that energy was captured. Can you hear reflections from the room a voice was recorded in? Can you detect the force of a cymbal after it's been struck, or has it been snipped and edited short by a big budget studio. Can you hear the singers feet, tapping in time to a song he used to translate his own energy?

There is something very special about listening to recordings that were made by real people, instead of engineers. Recordings that leave room to be human. In recordings of Glenn Gould made twenty years ago, you can hear him humming and stomping his feet as he plays through the goldberg variations. Try as the recording engineers might, they couldn't get the man to quiet for the studio, and so a bit of humanity was captured along with his brilliant playing. His passion, and his unique spirit. You almost feel as though he is still alive and breathing in the that very room with his piano.

That is the beauty of recording that is so often ignored or neglected. The ability to capture not only sound as energy, but human spirit. Energy, waves of various lengths and frequencies, is captured by a microphone and converted into an electrical impulse. That impulse is saved by a magnet, or as a series of ones and zeroes, and then converted back into an electrical impluse in a speaker. Somehow, despite all these tranformations, human spirit is retained. It triumphs over technology, and you embrace it in that favourite recording. That spirit that is impossible to describe in words.

Don your headphones. Turn on your stereo. Put on your favourite record and listen for the sounds of a human being.

If you're feeling extra adventures, come on over. I'll help you capture the sound of your spirit in a microphone.