In her interview with Bill Meyer in The Wire 454, Chicago based artist Olivia Block describes the long and diverse journey she's taken through her work with sound. She recalls her early experience of recording indie rock demos and four-track experimentation, to writing orchestral scores and collecting found audio. Most recently Block has used hallucinogenics in order to access the hidden experiences of people and animals, and allowed her revelations to inform her compositions on her latest release Innocent Passage In The Territorial Sea. Read all inside our December 2021 issue. Subscribers can also read the article online.

Here, Block provides an audio accompaniment to the interview, choosing significant tracks from her own archive.

“Heave To Pt 1”
From Heave To
(Sedimental, 2006)

In this piece I attempted to create a sound storm, where chamber instruments are like pieces of debris, tossed around in the wind and sea.While composing this, I wanted to create a context where so-called classical instrumentation is not given compositional precedence over the field recording and electronic sounds. Instead, all of the sounds are existing in a chaotic maelstrom, swirling and falling.

“132 Ranks” (excerpt)
From 132 Ranks
(Room40, 2018)

From my pipe organ concert at Rockefeller Chapel, and subsequent release in Room40.

“III”
From Olivia Block
(Another Timbre, 2019)

This is the first release featuring a performance of mostly acoustic sounds inside a piano, with minimal post production and editing.

“The Alarm”

This is an unedited found recording from a used micro cassette I purchased on eBay. I have an entire collection of tapes, apparently recorded in the 1970s and 80s, of this anonymous wise-guy who recorded many of his phone calls surreptitiously.

“Sonambient Pavilion”
(2014)

This is a stereo excerpt of a multichannel speaker installation made for the sprawling 16-channel sound system at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago. I used Harry Bertoia’s Sonambient sound sculptures as the sound source. These swaths tones and textures traveled around the giant lawn area from speaker to speaker in sweeping patterns.

“Katydids In The Texas Hill Country”

A straight field recording I made on a summer night in Texas many years ago. I find the polyrhythms mesmerizing. These sounds remind me of my father, who lived there.

“Opening Night”
From Karren
(Sedimental, 2014)

An orchestral and studio piece. The score was performed by The Chicago Composers’ Orchestra, then layered in post-production at varying speeds to create an other-worldly folding quality.

“City Map Concert”
(2013)

I performed this piece at The Palace Theater, Chicago, in 2013, using found micro cassettes, shortwave radio, and found 35mm slides projected on a rear projection screen. Some of these sounds eventually became part of my LP Dissolution (Glistening Examples).

“Block Genetti Sonderberg”

This is an unreleased studio recording performed with Carol Genetti and Adam Sonderberg. It’s difficult to discern the sound sources, as everything is mixed in a disorienting style, which is why I like it.

Read Olivia Block's interview in The Wire 454. Innocent Passage In The Territorial Sea is released by Room40.