Two Broods by Stephen Vitiello

Living in the southern part of the U.S., cicadas are the sound of summer. Still, 2024 was something totally different. National and local news agencies reported a cicada invasion coming to certain areas of the country, particularly in the Midwest. From an online source, I learned that for the first time since 1803, a 13-year and a 17-year brood, specifically, Brood XIX and XIII would be co-emerging.

In June, I was invited by biologist Kasey Fowler-Finn, Phd to fly out to St. Louis to record the insects before the moment passed. Kasey and I have worked on a number of recording projects over the last 10-years. Most of the previous projects have focused on substrate-borne vibrations, such as treehoppers, only heard through branches, leaves and stems of plants.

With info coming in from colleagues of Kasey’s who were tracking the emergences, we were pointed to Southern Illinois and to very specific locations to experience each brood. We drove to fields where walls of sound greeted us, each time with different sonic details and volume. As the winds would pick up or the sun would fade behind clouds, the intensity would fade. As the conditions changed again, the orchestra of insects (and birds and more) would intensify. Kasey would whisper that we were primarily hearing “decim” or “cassini” (Magicicada tredecim and Magicicada tredecassini respectively).

From all that we learned from the cicada community, the 13-year and 17-year broods had emerged within 15-minutes driving distance of eachother but not in exactly the same locations. The last track on this album is a collage of sounds from two sites – an imagined experience of the two truly emerging and converging.

Sound and visual artist, based in Richmond, VA