Imbrication by Jeph Jerman

The Verde River Valley is located in central Arizona, in a transition zone between low desert to the south and high mountains to the north. It has been my home for the past 17 years. Walking though the uninhabited areas outside of town, one encounters a wide variety of plant life: cactus as well as pine trees, creosote and crucifixion thorn, winterfat, mullein, snakeweed, hackberry, yucca and agave. There is also a plethora of debris from hundreds of years of human presence. Scatters of rusty metal cans and broken glass, half-buried automobiles and construction detritus, old homesteads and mines, as well as many ruins of prehistoric Indian sites. On my days off, when the weather is nice, i look for places where i can interact sonically with the land, improvising with found objects or amplifying barely audible sounds. Old fences and stock tanks give out metallic scrapes, pings and squeaks. Temporary water holes contain aquatic insects making a variety of buzzing, clicking and whirring sounds. Water itself gurgles, passing through rock-cut channels. The air is filled with the humming of flies and bees and the calls of crows. Airplanes over head. Far off road traffic.

These recordings were made with a stereo digital recorder and an old analog tape machine, contact mics and hydrophone, and occasionally a small battery powered amplifier.

(Jeph Jerman, 26 February 2018)

a thematic ltd series focusing primarily on phonographies reflecting the spirit of a specific place crowded with memories, its aura & resonances and our intimate interaction with it…

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