DOUG HAIRE

the sound and the music

 

My professional life and my life as an artist revolve around music and sound art.  Engineering and producing projects in the studio and in live settings, composing and releasing my own work, sitting and watching the clouds roll by . . . .  it all moves down the same trail and that’s where I’m headed.  The first line of page links at the top relate to the professional side of me and are intended to clarify where I’ve come from and how I can help you with your project.  The second line covers my work as a sound artist and includes a soundscapes page which has a regularly updated series of sound pieces for your entertainment.  Contact me if you would like.  dough@nwlink.com






                                                                       This . . .

+ New audio on the Soundscapes page.  Solo, Java revisited 20 years later.  What time does to travel.

+ Just released through CD Baby is my new decade-long project Myrtle Beach Professional Park.  This work focuses on the sonic intersection of man and nature.  After dark the sound of man moves inside the sound of our partners - the crickets and the frogs.  More about this 10 year project on the releases page.





+  A lot of the work that i finish simply stands on it’s own and has not had a way to be presented to those who might be interested in listening to it.  The problem is now solved.  The Soundscapes page on this site is a growing selection of works that you are free to download or stream.  I’m delighted to have this venue and hope you will hear something that is entertaining and useful.  Click on “go to archive” at the bottom of the page to get the complete list of available soundscapes.

+  The discography just keeps growing.  For years now i’ve been typically working on 5 to 6 album projects at a time.  A jazz or improv disc can frequently be completed in 2 or 3 sessions while a string quartet or a singer/songwriter project can stretch over several years.  Sometimes it’s rather intense but mostly it’s just plain lovely.  The latest titles are now on the discography page.

  1. + Want to hear something new from the pacific northwest?  Since 1996 I’ve been producing and engineering Sonarchy on kexp.org.  An hour of live performance from the underground of Seattle channeled through the studios at Jack Straw Productions.  Here is the list of current shows available at the itunes store (search for sonarchy podcast in itunes) as posted by my partners at the superfine kexp.org

  2. + The Seattle Phonographers Union is an association that I am particularly happy with.  We’re a band.  Our live shows are listening intensive, freely improvised sonic trips created with unprocessed location recordings.  I love the way we create new and often impossible places for a listener to feel, at once, familiar yet completely foreign.  We keep busy with new record releases and regular gigs in the Pacific Northwest.  Our website:  http://www.seapho.org/

  3. +Bassist and bossa nova lover Leo Remundo recently tempted me with this remarkable quote from Brazillian guitarist, Joao Gilberto,  “Do not injure the silence.”  Silence, yes, the silence.

  4. +It’s strikes me lately that playing your instrument well is the new avant-garde.

  5. + Mono no aware - Literally “an intense feeling of things.”  An ancient term that enshrines the Buddhist  idea of ephemerality.  Used in art criticism to convey a sense of beautiful sadness or gentle melancholy.  Its links with the beauty of impermanence make it a very close relative of the term wabi-sabi. (Andrew Juniper)  Can Mono no aware be applied to sound art and field recordings?  I will be working on that in 2010.

  6. + Here is a sobering statistic to help you decide if your next release should be a CD or as a digital download.  CD manufacturing is an energy-intensive process.  To manufacture just one pound of plastic, it takes 300 cubic feet of natural gas, two cups of crude oil and 24 gallons of water.  With one pound of plastic, you can make 30 CD’s.  This does not include transporation.  This comes from Cowbell magazine.  I think this is a good argument for making custom, numbered editions that feature unique artwork and materials that support the music.  If you don’t feel the need to do this then the download model of distribution is ideal.