Tomáš Šenkyřík - Waiting for a Song

A Closer Listen

There are many times when people are waiting for a song: waiting for a DJ to spin a song in a club or on the radio; waiting for a song to be sung in concert; waiting for “Happy Birthday” or “Silent Night” or “Auld Lang Syne,” each of which signifies a specific setting and set of feelings.  Tomáš Šenkyřík is waiting for the dawn chorus, the “chiffchaff sound” of the Zelienka wetland, the song that means restoration efforts have worked.

We last encountered the artist on Jaro (Spring), his son endearingly asleep in a bicycle seat as field recordings were captured.  Šenkyřík is still waking up early, now traveling to the aeolian sands and wetlands of the Bor lowland, listening for its song: a song that was once harmonic, then dissonant and distorted, today again seeking harmony.  Undisturbed, the sand sometimes conquered the wetlands, the wetlands sometimes conquered the sand.  But then the familiar tale: humans interfered, extracting peat, disturbing the natural rhythms, the give and take.

The artist waits, and listens, and we listen as well, silent witnesses.  The dawn chorus is lush with life: woodpeckers and mate seekers, food gatherers and hungry infants.  Something unsettles the wildlife and they squawk as one.  A wayward predator or human intrusion?  We picture the artist as still as possible, determined to capture a pristine biophany.  Then a subtle shift to the sounds of waterfowl, the flow of water, a high-pitched tweet.  The avian population, at least, is diverse and confident.  Moving to the source of the flow, the artist finds a rushing torrent by a creaking tree.  This opening ten-minute portion teems with vibrancy.

What about the rustle instead of the bustle, the quiet in-between?  As Šenkyřík turns his attention to humbler settings, each specific sound becomes more intense: an insect cry, a bullfrog, a passing gull, micro rather than macro.  Is this the song the artist has been waiting to hear – the equivalent of a DJ platter?  Hoot and honk, tweet and trill reveal a wealth of lead vocalists.  Zelienka is now a nature reserve, established in hopes that nature might reassert its own rhythms.

Waiting for a Song is a hopeful recording in that it captures the sound of a reserve going in the right direction; in this case, backwards is forwards.  In five or ten years, we hope to hear the song of a similar visit, that we might compare biophanies.  So many field recording works are songs of destruction; we’ve been waiting a long time for a song of mending.  (Richard Allen)