This soundscape was composed from recordings I made in the heart of the Amazon Rain Forest. In my process of organizing biophonic recordings into this composition, I was able to pull back the curtain for a glimpse of the forest’s emergent intelligence, hidden within the melodic rain and subtle syncopations of thousands of simultaneous animal vibrations.

My intention is not to simply mimic the musicality of the tropical rain forest, nor do I intend to perpetuate the “new-age notion that nature is all beauty and peace” (as Toop says). Rather, I want to bring alive the rain forest in the listener’s ear by crafting something that resonates with its source in all its quiet cacophony and tumultuous competition to be heard, “simultaneously in synchrony yet out of phase” (Steven Feld). Bernie Krause explains that when attempting to recreate the surround sound experience of natural environments, with a sense of biotic movement, we need to engage in post-production “to make the sounds translate from one medium (the natural world) to another (artificial spaces)”. I used shifts in tempo, cross fades, overlaid tracks, and other Audacity tools and techniques to accomplish this.