The Organist
Low Fidelity
What sounds don’t we hear when we listen? What sounds are discarded in digital processing, whether it’s through hearing aids or mp3s?
By Andrew Leland • • 31m ListenTemple Grandin, an animal scientist and autism advocate, describes how she uses sound to make cattle slaughterhouses more humane. Journalist Bella Bathurst describes how she lost her hearing while conducting interviews with the last generation of Scottish lighthouse keepers and then how it felt, twelve years later, to regain it. Along the way, we’ll listen deeply to ABBA and the Beach Boys and hear an excerpt from Alexander Provan’s experimental essay/soundscape/bildungsroman Measuring Device with Organs, which explores sound connoisseurship and the tones that high-fidelity eliminates as unsavory.
Provan’s work is available as both an LP and MP3 from Triple Canopy.
Produced by Ross Simonini, Matt Frassica, Jason Boog, and Alexander Provan.
Additional music by Science Park.Image credit: Flickr user Soichi Yokoyama
