Dear Reader,

In this Thanksgiving season, I just wanted to take a moment to express gratitude I’ve been feeling for three people here on Substack that I admire, and who have helped me to connect with a bunch of you.

Carson Ellis Carson is a busy artist / illustrator and children’s book author, but when I asked her for her take on Substack almost two years ago she emailed back the same day with a 600 word email. At some point between then and now she added Soundwalk to the recommendations that appear in the sidebar of her newsletter, Slowpoke. In the interim nearly one in five of my subscribers found me through her! That knocked my socks off. It’s a testament to the naturally curious people that gravitate to her and her amazing work. Three cheers for Carson Ellis!

Rowen Brooke I was immediately curious about Rowen’s fast-growing newsletter, Field Notes, from its title. Her posts relate her observations, challenges and insights in pursuit of becoming both a regenerative flower farmer & florist and aspiring naturalist. Her recent posts indicate a measured advance toward the latter, given the sensory detail emerging in her writing. Rowen’s past recommendation of Soundwalk points to nearly one in ten subscribers finding me through Field Notes. Thanks Rowen!

Colin Meloy Colin is the frontman for The Decemberists, the author of many books, and is married to Carson Ellis. You’d be forgiven for thinking he couldn’t possibly sound like his writing in real life, given his ability to weave in some impressive and uncommon vocabulary words in his newsletter, Colin Meloy’s Machine Shop, but I’m here to tell you that he does. He writes like he talks, folks. Colin slipped Soundwalk into a little list he worked up for the official guest-authored compendium The Substack Post halfway through 2024. I recollect my subscriber count jumped by well over 100 overnight! A generous inclusion, to be sure. Thanks Meloy!

It really underscores how meaningful word-of-mouth is to someone like me. If you’re reading this and found me through a recommendation, feel free to let me know with a ‘like’ or comment below.

On to this week’s soundwalk. Last week I shared a recording made at Natural Bridges in Washington, a site with two rock bridges spanning a rock-jumbled ravine. The bridges were the remnants of a lava tube cave ceiling, created 12,000 to 18,000 years ago. A few miles away, another complex of lava tubes known as Guler Ice Cave(s) remain intact.

These caves, once commercialized for their ability keep ice and preserve harvested crops by one Christian Guler, are easily accessed today, though exploring them extensively requires crawling through cold, dark, tight passages.

My recording is centered on the main cave mouth that is pictured above. Once again you hear that marvelous wind in the pines (which appeared in the previous two recordings) juxtaposed against a constellation of drips, plinks and plops in the foreground.

My composition pulls from complimentary instrument voices: the sweep of a dobro-derived synth pads; the resonance of low end stringed instruments; the percussive twinkle of a Dulcitone celeste; the shimmer of a percolating “swarm” synth pad. It’s all designed to mirror the tonality of the cave entrance environment.

Strains of Pine Siskin and Dark-eyed Junco filter in.

This is a short, textural audio postcard. I hope you enjoy it. Ice Cave is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms today Friday, November 21st, 2025.

It’s a Substack exclusive. And, my favorite recording that I’ve listened to lately.

Natural Bridges was on the shorter side (11:34) so I didn’t slate it for a wide release. I hadn’t even listened to it for over four months, until a few days ago. It surprised me how good it was: how transportive, how intertwined, how gentle, how concise.

This all brings to mind the subject of confidence in artistry. A few years ago, when I was just beginning my explorations in environmental music—and while explaining what I’d been up to lately at a wedding reception—I decided to try on a few words: I’m the best at it.

My logic was this: being the best at something almost nobody does is really pretty easy—an absurdist boast—so why not frame it that way? Why not project seriousness with a touch of humor? (This was well before my stats on the leading streaming service increased, by the way, so it wasn’t any kind of posturing based on numbers.) Isn’t it what every artist secretly wants: to be the best at what they do?

So I said, “I make soundwalks. I record the sound of my walk and compose instrumental music to go with it. I’m the best at it.”

I scanned the table for responses. I was surrounded by musicians who were all more skilled than me, incidentally. I saw some thin smiles, but overall a muted response. Usually when I’m uncomfortable, I immediately follow up with a qualifying remark, but I was determined to let this linger. Then a friend I admire said something along the lines of, “I don’t know… the best, huh?” like he was challenging me to a soundwalk duel, or at least like he imagined I would go down pretty easily in a soundwalk duel. It was delivered like a line at a poker table. I couldn’t tell if it was casual or calculated, or both. In that moment, though, I decided that the bravado didn’t suit me. I laughed it off and switched the subject. The exchange helped me realize I don’t need to, or want to be the best. Being the best is defending a title. It’s not motivating, it’s not authentic. It’s conflict, it’s worry, it’s stress. No thanks.

But, I’m okay going on the record that this 11 minutes, 34 seconds of audio is good. In fact, maybe it’s the best 11:34 of environmental music I presently have to offer.

Natural Bridges is a geological curiosity and a short hiking destination in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in SW Washington state. The “natural bridge” features are the remnants of a lava tube cave ceiling that collapsed, created during lava flows 12,000-18,000 years ago. The site is in a quiet region of mountain prairies, lakes and coniferous forests.

Natural Bridges is only available (for the foreseeable future) to paid subscribers. Soundwalk is a reader-supported publication. Thank you for reading and listening. And, thank you for your support!

One thing I think you come to appreciate after some months or years of field recording, or intentional listening, is the variability of sound that conifers make when played by the wind.

Where I live, I’m surrounded by conifers. Douglas-firs abound. They produce a sharp sound in the wind, occasionally what you might call a hiss. Just an hour to the east, beyond the crest of the Cascade Range, a more arid landscape plays host to ponderosa pine trees. The wind on their needles is quite different. Because their needles are flexible and bundled together, they sway and brush against each other in waves, producing a softer sound. More of a shush. Words fail me here. You just have to listen.

This recording captures the song of the pines as a backdrop for the birds that make this habitat their home.

We hear Western Wood Pewee, Pine Siskin, American Goldfinch, Hairy Woodpecker, White-crowned sparrow, American Robin, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and California Quail—to name names—on a mild June evening near Glenwood, Washington.

But what is it about ponderosa pine trees that they produce such a sonorous sound? According to field recordist Gordon Hempton, the pitch is a function of the length of the needle or blade of grass.

“We can go back to the writings of John Muir, which — he turned me on to the fact that the tone, the pitch, of the wind is a function of the length of the needle or the blade of grass. So the shorter the needle on the pine, the higher the pitch; the longer, the lower the pitch.”

-Gordon Hempton, recordist

While that sounds plausible and is certainly memorable, it’s not the whole story. It’s not just about length; stiffness, density, bundling, and flexibility all matter too. All the complexity of the canopy structure goes into the sound. The turbulence of the wind moving between needles, branches and trunks, and the brushing of the needles against each other all plays a role.

Take a guitar string; the string is fixed at both ends and vibrates at specific frequencies determined by its length, tension, and mass. Needles are only fixed at one end, so they’re more like tines than strings. The frequency of a guitar string follows clear mathematical relationships: a string twice as long vibrates at half the frequency (one octave lower), assuming same tension and thickness. The sound of pine needles comes primarily from aerodynamics: wind flowing around needles creates fluctuations in the air. Needles twice as long do not whisper an octave lower; rather, they produce a lower range of pitches due to the lower frequency of movements and resulting turbulence they create.

A string can produce a clear frequency. A needle produces a spectrum of frequencies; a texture.

What can be said about all the variety of needles, leaves, and blades of grass and the sounds they make in the wind? Has someone attempted to map them?

If there is such an inventory, I did not find it, but I did find the following observations made nearly seven centuries ago in an interesting piece of nature writing. It’s observational, philosophical, and poetic all at once:

Wind cannot create sound on its own: it sounds only in connection with things. It is unlike the ferocious clamor of thunder, which rumbles through the void. Since wind sounds only in connection with things, its sound depends on the thing: loud or soft, clear or vague, delightful or frightening—all are produced depending on the form of the thing. Though it may come into contact with earthen or rock pedestals in the shape of tortoises, sounds are not produced. If a valley is empty and immense, its sound is vigorous and fierce; when water gently flows, its sound is still turbulent and agitated—neither achieves a harmonious balance, and both cause man to feel fearful and frightened. Therefore, only plants and trees can produce suitable sounds.

Among plants and trees, those with large leaves have a muffled sound; those with dry leaves have a sorrowful sound; those with frail leaves have a weak and unmelodic sound. For this reason, nothing is better suited to wind than the pine.

Now, the pine as a species has a stiff trunk and curled branches, its leaves are thin, and its twigs are long. It is gnarled yet noble, unconstrained and overspreading, entangled and intricate. So when wind passes through it, it is neither obstructed nor agitated. Wind flows through smoothly with a natural sound. Listening to it can relieve anxiety and humiliation, wash away confusion and impurity, expand the spirit and lighten the heart, make one feel peaceful and contemplative, cause one to wander free and easy through the skies and travel along with the force of Creation. It is well suited to gentlemen who seek pleasure in mountains and forests, delighting in them and unable to abandon them.

-Liu Chi, (1311–1375)

Thanks for listening and reading. If you made it this far, consider tapping ‘like’ just to let me know you were here. I often wonder things like, will I lose readers with this big block quote? Are subscribers alienated by a post marked ‘paid’?

Ponderosa Grove is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms today Friday, November 7th, 2025.

I hadn’t planned to write a post for Wren. In fact, just yesterday I was thinking about how I could skip even writing a Substack Note, which I had been mulling over. What to say?

And then I found myself returning to the interesting thing I learned earlier in the week: how the Cherokee traditional calendar ended and started in the fall, and how that made intrinsic sense to me. A time of harvest and reflection. So, I’m feeling inclined to reflect because this is the last Sleeping Animal release from a slate of several this year.

As a brief recap, Sleeping Animal came about as a solution for two of my concerns: first, I was swamping my own name with too many releases, and second, I’d long feared my preoccupation with incorporating environmental recordings was seen as little more than a gimmick. So Sleeping Animal became my repository for instrumental works, destined to succeed or fail on their own birdsong-less merits.

Let’s turn the clock back to 1994. Having re-enrolled at the University of Oregon after a stint at community college, I was edged out of upper level fine arts courses that I needed for my degree. They were all full. The solution was Independent Study. I would pay the university for credits I needed with the minimum amount of instruction. No problem, I thought. I’d already done that in high school by completing an International Baccalaureate art portfolio, a boon to my college credit tally going in.

I wanted to impress my professor/mentor, so I put a lot of hours into having what amounted to a full exhibit’s worth of paintings to show at our first meeting. The oil paintings were monochromatic—raw umber primarily—using a medium to essentially mimic a watercolor technique. The subject matter was figurative, featuring simple, almost abstracted backgrounds.

So there I was, in the little-used art school room I’d been using for a studio, with all my paintings spread out, only weeks into the term. I imagined my mentor would be surprised. He might say something like, “Well you’ve been busy!”

What happened was he entered the room, said almost nothing, ranged around with a pained expression on his face, seemingly finding nothing worth examining closely, asking few if any questions, and then proclaimied—in so many words—that the work was thin and cartoony. Those were the words I specifically remembered anyway, because they cut. They hurt.

There was not the slightest scrap of praise offered for my work ethic. If anything, it seemed like the number of paintings was taken as an affront; evidence for their thin-ness. I did not mount much of a defense, and was relieved when I was again by myself in the quiet room.

In the following weeks I painted over every one of them. Though hard to hear, it was true. The paintings were essentially drawings, rendered with paint. You could see the gesso brush strokes under the washier areas.

In my second act of Independent Study I turned to landscapes and still life. A little bit Rothko, a little bit Morandi. A completely different path.

Now, looking at the gallery of album art that has swiftly assembled for Sleeping Animal—all monochrome and seemingly in service of a neoclassical trope—how could I not be reminded of that formative season thirty years ago?

Now, in the peak of fall with my body of work on display, for all to hear, I’m drawn back to that quiet classroom in my mind. What is the verdict?

Well, I’ll be the first to say they all look and sound more or less the same. Having said that, it’s not a matter of if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all. More like if you heard one and didn’t find it at all useful, you can skip the others. But, isn’t it like that for most artists?

When I first imagined Sleeping Animal, I thought I would revisit a type of work I made that was built up with arpeggiated synthesizers. I also thought that I would leave an opening for vocals, at first just dipping my toe in those waters. Alas, I never came round to those programmed arpeggios. The vocal layers, however, are a unique attribute, mixed at a whisper. I wanted them to be felt more than heard.

What I’m proud of is how naive, imperfect and unvarnished these works are. And, for this first act, I’m happy that I didn’t come out with arpeggiated synths blazing. The thing I prize most about them, as compositions, is how they breathe. They expand and contract. They are expressive not through dexterity or dynamics, but in their relationship to time.

Now for act two!

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. It only took me a few decades to be able to tell the story. Find Wren filed under Sleeping Animal today Oct. 30th, 2025 on all streaming services.

I rely on word of mouth to find my audience, so if you find my music or my storytelling entertaining, useful or relatable, please do share it with someone.

Today’s environmental recording captures the sound of an area within Forest Park that few people gave much thought to, until a headline grabbed their attention 21 years ago.

In 2004, a pair of off-trail endurance runners came across a father and daughter living in a dugout shelter in Portland’s 5200 acre Forest Park. They had been living there for four years.

Upon discovery, police were dispatched for a wellness check. Eventually one officer helped the two resettle on a horse farm where the father, Frank, worked and they attended the local church. They left the farm after about a month, never to be heard from again. Their story inspired Peter Rock’s 2009 fictionalized novel My Abandonment, which was adapted into the acclaimed 2018 film Leave No Trace.

When first discovered, Frank was 53 and Ruth was 12. Their makeshift home was constructed on the side of a steep hill, not far from where this recording was made. Inside the shelter were encyclopedias, a bible, toys, a doll, sleeping bags.

Nearby was a planted vegetable garden and a water catchment structure.

“But how could a 53 year old father with a 12 year old daughter survive in this thick, dense forest for four years?” asks a reporter as he bushwhacks down a brushy hillside in a 2004 segment for KATU news. “Well, police say Frank’s a smart guy, college-educated. He’s also an ex-marine who served two tours in Vietnam.”

The reporter concludes, “So why would a father with no job, but a $400 a month disability check, hide in the forest? Those that saw them on their weekly walks out of the woods to church, the library and to buy food say it was a father’s fear society might separate him from the one he loves.”

Amateur mystery detectives on Reddit wanted to know more. Based on the few details in the 2004 news stories, they placed the father, Frank Trecarten, in articles 20 years prior in 1984, describing a manhunt for a mountain man or “survivalist”, in Quebec and New Hampshire after allegations of desecrating an church altar and attempted arson.

Then in 2005, log books for Appalachian Trail hikers signed by “Mountain Man” and “Miss Mountain Dew”—believed to be trail names for Frank and Ruth—were discovered. A photo corroborates the placement with the identifying note: Frank “Trefcarten”.

Most recently, in 2013, the name Frank Treecarten reappears in articles outlining a flare gun shooting assault in Concord, New Hampshire, where it appears Frank was charged with two felonies and held on $8,000 bail. The verdict in the case is unknown.

These details paint the story in a more acute light, potentially revealing a decades-long pattern of living on the fringes, possibly exacerbated by PTSD.

I re-watched Leave No Trace and listened to the My Abandonment audiobook. Although the movie is adapted from the book, they diverge significantly, especially approaching their conclusions. The book is decidedly more tragic, while the movie hits a more optimistic note. The optimist in me wants the film to be closer to the truth. One can’t help but wonder about Ruth, who would be in her mid 30’s now, and Frank, now in his mid 70‘s. If amateur investigators are to be believed, Ruth is now married and living in Oregon.

Another thing that I noticed and appreciated in the film was how sparse the score was. It was barely there. It inspired me to further pare down my own future scores, letting the soundscape “take solos”.

Additionally, a lot of films get the wildlife sounds wrong, but this was better than most. Varied Thrush, and Northern Pygmy Owl stood out to my ear. I don’t remember hearing Pacific Wren though; a true soundmark of Forest Park.

That late May morning I sat in the middle of the Maple Trail above Saltzman Creek. No one passed by. The trail had been closed for some time following bridge damage. Portions of steel decking were broken off and the railing remained squashed from the impact of a fallen tree.

While there, I made an oil pastel drawing while soaking up the tranquil setting. I also made a half-hearted attempt to scout around looking some clue of a former habitation; a whisper trail, a depression. Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know precisely where to look. That ridge or this ridge? It seemed pointless, really.

Perhaps the reason that this story still looms so large in imaginations is because it makes us confront how estranged we truly are from the old ways: living light in the woods, not too far removed from hunting and gathering. We don’t really hear these kind of narratives in the USA anymore. We are aghast to discover that a father and daughter did so, undetected, for four years in a city nature park. It defied expectation.

I wonder what this says about us; about the velocity and trajectory of civilization? I don’t have any conclusions of my own to offer. All I know is a young person, I spent nights discretely camped at a few dubious spots while cycling across the USA. You definitely sleep lighter. I can’t imagine that kind of background anxiety over the long term.

My score attempts to hold these two things in tension: the wonder and a the discomfort of living outdoors, close to the land, peering into its wildness.

Thanks for listening and reading. Saltzman Creek is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms today Friday, October 24th, 2025.

I’m sitting on a bench at the nearby city park listening to Creek & Raven. It comes out in a few days, as I write this. I haven’t listened to it for many months now, so it’s both surprising and unsurprising how it opens. Unsurprising is the trilling Pacific Wren, a distant Common Raven and the faint sound of a creek. Surprising is the mournful synthesizer lead that resembles a French horn.

The vibe is meeting me where I am today, on this last overcast day of another extended Portland Indian summer. Winter is coming, literally and figuratively. I feel it; stark, curious and foreboding.

The environmental audio was captured in one of the deeper canyons of Forest Park in early June of this year. The creek that carved this deep canyon is named Rocking Chair Creek after the discovery of a rocking chair in its waters. I’m visualizing it now like the heirloom bentwood rocker in my living room, half sunk with gold-green moss growing on it, illuminated in a sunbeam.

I returned to the canyon a few weeks ago and made more sketches. It’s interesting to me how the palette shifted, on return, to bluer hues of green.

This brings to mind how the observer influences a scene; how interpretations and tone can shift. About 8 miles away from this canyon is a different scene that has captured the imagination of the nation, and beyond, in the recent news cycle.

Here, a nondescript beige multi-story federal building stands between Interstate 5 and the Willamette river on the margins of downtown Portland, Oregon. It is ground zero for a political Rorschach test. A lot has been written about it. I’m not interested in trying to summarize that here. If you know, you know…you know?

But the idea that there is any debate about facts on the ground; that there is any set of conditions that presently call for US military intervention in my home town is unnerving. It is deeply strange and seemingly animated by a dark fantasy.

Most here poke fun at the absurdity of it all; the disconnect between truth and image-peddling. A few have their own reasons to support some hazy notion of a “crackdown”. The city is not without problems, after all. Anyone can tell you that. It’s been a tough run over the better part of a decade, here and most everywhere. On that score, there have been plenty of indications that the city turned a corner. I travelled to four capital cities in Europe over the summer and they didn’t strike me as better or worse, any more or less livable on the whole.

The fever-pitched finger pointing is what makes my stomach churn. The notion that educated people cannot in good faith arrive at a consensus on whether a city is “war-ravaged”, “under siege”, even “burning to the ground” or about average for its size is like a chapter out of George Orwell’s 1984.

“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”

“2 + 2 = 5”

-Party doctrine from 1984 by George Orwell

In the finale of Creek and Raven we hear ravens croak and rattle with gusto. What are they saying?

Ravens have long been cast as messengers in the symbology of First Nations. As a communicative carrion bird, their associations with prophecy, insight, and playing intermediary between life and death are long held.

Do these ravens have any prophecies or insights to share about their home in Portland, Oregon? Recent studies have identified at least 30 to 40 distinct vocalizations in ravens’ repertoire. They vocalize for the same reasons humans do: talking about food, keeping track of family members, socializing, bonding, playing, warning, and identifying each other specifically. Ravens even use “emotional” prosody; they convey urgency or calm through tone. They can learn new vocalizations, mimicking human speech and other sounds.

I think we could all benefit by taking time to actively listen to what Bernie Krause coined the “biophony”, the layer of the soundscape made by living organisms. We would do well to listen to each other as well; us human animals. I believe estrangement from the biophony, can lead to less empathy, and that can lead to all sorts of unfortunate outcomes.

We have some mending to do. We have holes in our social fabric left over from the pandemic; splits aggravated by social media and the tribalism of news media empires. Maybe we can take a lesson from ravens and just remember to talk to each other; to shoot the breeze about food and family.

A raven’s warning call is a sharp, urgent Kawk! Kawk! Kawk! But what happens when one of the flock spreads alarm when there is no real threat? We know from the old folk tale how Chicken Little—the sky is falling!—learns a lesson about spreading alarm without evidence…in the sanitized version of the tale. In most versions, the characters (Chicken Little, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey) encounter Foxy Loxy who uses the panic to trick them into his den and eat them all.

What I think we are facing in this country is leadership that is acting like Chicken Little while also behaving like Foxy Loxy. It’s not normal. It’s not okay. I think it needs to be called out. I think we—all of us—deserve more from elected leaders. I’m not typically an outspoken person, but now doesn’t feel like the time to sit back and say nothing.

Thank you, as always, for joining me here, and for listening to my point of view.

Creek & Raven is available on all music streaming services October 17th, 2025.

It’s been a little while since my last Listening Spot release. If you’re just joining, Listening Spot is a pseudonym I use for stationary environmental recordings paired to atmospheric “ambient” compositions. Once again, however, I’m breaking with the tradition of avoiding piano with a Listening Spot release. Pianet electric piano alternates with Korg synthesizer “dew drops” at the center of this musical score.

This time we are visiting the iconic Mt. Tabor Park of Portland, Oregon.

The 636 ft (194 meter) forested peak rises up from the otherwise mostly level plane of SE Portland. It’s a dormant cinder cone volcano from a lava field formation now quiet for over 300,000 years. From a bird’s eye view, it’s a promising rest stop on migration, offering an island of green in a patchwork of grey.

On spring mornings the park bustles with both bird and human activity. Many exercise routines target the broad summit, offering the reward of a city view looking west toward downtown Portland. Here’s a sketch of it I made on my phone:

As far as environmental recording goes, I’ve historically found Mt. Tabor to be a difficult place to make “pleasing” recordings. This notion of pleasing is, of course, entirely subjective. But, in general, the topography and popularity of the park makes the anthropogenic layers more of a focal point. Dogs barking, joggers huffing up trails, sirens wailing, trucks beeping… These are all fine and interesting sounds—I’ve actually recently come to find backup beeps an interesting musical counterpoint to the sound of nuthatches, for example—but they are not the sounds I’ve set out to capture…yet anyway.

More recently, I found a spot that’s pretty well insulated from the city soundscape and the bulk of human visitors. There is a knob between reservoir 1 and 5 with a solitary bench on top, offering a relatively tranquil listening spot in the 191-acre park. Here, I made this recording on April 4th of this year. The sounds of the city barely register below the songbirds belting out their springtime melodies.

We hear Lesser Goldfinch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Robin, Song Sparrow, Pine Siskin, Steller’s Jay, Northern Flicker, and a Swainson’s Thrush, to name a few. It’s a sharp contrast to the subdued songs of fall.

My score is of the minimal, imperfect, reflective and tender sort. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for coming along for the journey. It’s not always clear to me if I’m connecting with readers and listeners via Substack, so feel free to say hi.

Or, if you can think of someone who might like what I’m doing, please let them know. It means a lot to me.

Mt. Tabor Park is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms Friday October 3rd.

I like to work in batches. Pollinator Corridor can be filed under two batches: 1) Forest Park and 2) plein air soundwalks.

So Forest Park is self explanatory, but could use some contextualizing, which I’ll get into shortly. The plein air soundwalks batch is still taking shape. Basically it’s just me recording and sketching—like I said last time—offering a little twist on my Soundwalk formula. One little experiment I did on this particular day was to make some botanical sketches.

For being in Forest Park, you might notice on this cover that the view here isn’t thickly forested:

This is the view looking back up the hill on BPA road, where a swath of forestland was removed long ago to accommodate the high voltage power lines that run up and over the Tualatin Mountains here on the north end of the 5000 acre wooded park. The gravel and dirt lane is maintained for power line inspection and maintenance purposes, while serving dual purpose as a multi-use trail connecting the trails that intersect it.

It’s a distinct habitat in Forest Park; an edge land where grasses, berries and wildflowers grow, attracting some different animal species than the forest interior. Portland Parks & Rec. calls this a Pollinator Corridor. If you’re patient, you’ll see and hear these visitors: the migratory Rufous Hummingbird with its little toy motorcycle sound; berry-eating songbirds like the Black-headed Grosbeak; insects like bumble bees, and Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies; and deer or sometimes elk slowly cracking through downed branches on the perimeter, coming and going.

There are few places in Forest Park that open up sufficiently to afford views of the Cascade Mountains to the west. This is one of them:

Fireweed, oceanspray, western goldenrod, and Oregon Sunshine also thrive here. Here’s a sketch of orange honeysuckle.

It’s both serene and pulsing with life.

For the score, I really leaned into the sound of the Soma Lyre “Organismic Synthesizer”. I’m using a virtual instrument playable by a midi keyboard, but the original inductive pad and knob box hardware is quite fascinating. Many electronic musicians find it unusually emotive and inspiring.

I’m also using a virtual instrument that samples the quieter timbres created by manipulating the tone bars of a 50’s / 60’s Hammond organ. I used to own a Hammond M3 organ, and my earliest musical experiments involved playing with the toggle switches and tone bars to add warm, crackly textures to my nascent experimental performances.

I didn’t reach for any Electric Piano for this one. In this way it’s crossbred with my Listening Spot ouvre, I suppose.

Reaching the end of BPA Road, the hiker is presented with a three way fork. All options are a road less travelled. Two lanes lead out to prominences topped by high voltage electric towers overlooking the Willamette River and the lower Columbia beyond. The other lane plunges down to Hwy 30 below, and is prone to overgrowth. Here’s the view from the northernmost point. It’s very peaceful place with a meadowy feel, and a nice view of the Multnomah Channel and the Sauvie Island Bridge:

Thank you, as always, for joining me here. I hope you enjoy Pollinator Corridor. It’s available on all music streaming services today, September 19th, 2025.

Also, last week I released another instrumental EP under the pseudonym Sleeping Animal. So if you’re in the mood for some impressionistic electric piano-centered music, I’ve got you covered there too. That one is called Traverse, also available on all music streaming services.

When it comes to soundwalks, it’s unusual for me to let two years go by from the time of capturing audio until release. I had to leave this one alone for a while and come back to it with fresh ears. Dear reader, this is Ecola Soundwalk.

There are a number of hiking routes at Ecola State Park just north of Cannon Beach, Oregon. It’s an astonishingly beautiful headland chock full of seastacks and fog belt Sitka spruce coastal forests. It’s a national treasure really, as far as state parks go.

I went for the Clatsop Loop route, hoping the inland leg would provide for some quiet encounters with wildlife. It was quiet, and this ultimately informed the instrumentation I chose. When I finally came back to it, I realized the whole thing just needed to be softer and quieter. That’s what was missing from my first pass at composing and arranging, over a year before.

Not that any of my soundwalks are recommended for listening in a car or on a plane trip, but Ecola Soundwalk should come with a warning label: Do not attempt to listen outside a quiet environment. It won’t sound good. There are even some passages that might sound experimental with their woozy, threadbare, textured minimalism.

Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Chestnut-backed Chickadees eventually enter the soundscape after the five minute mark, and they come and go through the middle bit. Red Crossbills fly over and Red-breasted Nuthatches move slowly through the upper canopy.

After a Barred Owl sighting, we once again hear the surf about 2/3 of the way through. It’s distant. Below. This is not a beach soundwalk. It’s a moody coastal forest soundwalk.

And, it’s a walk with periodic astonishing vistas. The lonesome Tillamook Rock Lighthouse is a sight to behold.

Well, that’s really all I can think of to say this week. Thanks for reading and listening. Thanks for sticking with me.

Ecola Soundwalk is available on all music streaming services today, September 5th, 2025.

After a few weeks, I’m back, and excited to share something new. Out today is Meadow Showers, an album offering a new twist on the soundwalk form that has given shape to my work over the last three years.

The twist is admittedly a gentle one: In a nutshell, it’s simply less footsteps in the mix. On this soundwalk I’m engaged at intervals in plein air (outdoor) painting using an iPad (or phone), while quietly soaking up the soundscape as I sketch. If you’ve been keeping up, you may recall this post from June 12, introducing the concept:

The soundscape for Meadow Showers was captured on June 20th of this year at the Holman Lane entrance to Forest Park in Portland Oregon. The meadow had already grown tall. Grass cuttings lay on the trail. A squall whipped through the trees.

I took cover across the meadow under a broadleaf tree with a bench underneath it, Looking in the opposite direction, I worked up this image as a summer rain shower passed over.

Eventually other visitors came into the scene. A child squealed with delight. A group of young people walked by speaking Chinese. The birds were temporarily quieted by the weather.

Before long, I ventured out on the Wildwood Trail, stopping to sketch this image of the hillside terrain:

Rain clouds came and went. With another downpour brewing, I found myself taking shelter under a tree overlooking this woodland scene with two snags emerging from the bracken:

The wind massaged the canopy, playing it like an instrument.

In all, Meadow Showers is a postcard-esque series of vignettes, writ in image and sound. It’s a new soundwalk formula that I will revisit through the coming year. The first handful is already on deck and slotted in the release schedule, and I have designs for creating more, with the aim of pushing against some of the self-imposed boundaries of my craft.

I’ve been feeling a little stuck and disaffected lately, I guess. Insofar as this relates to my work, I’m hopeful a new angle can open some doors. What do you do when you feel stuck, alienated, or upset? Feel free to help me brainstorm with a comment.

Thanks for reading and listening. I’m glad to have you along!

Meadow Showers is available on all music streaming services August 29, 2025.