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introducing-the-biophony
Most people see nature. Bernie Krause hears it.
For three decades, he's collected the sounds of the natural world, from Amazon jungles to Antarctic glaciers and even ant colonies. For Krause, the sounds are more than ambience: They're a sonic manifestation of ecologies, at once beautiful and information-dense.
"If we lived in a culture that was more sonically oriented, rather than visually oriented, what kinds of things would we experience?" Krause wonders.
In his newly published The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places, Krause answers that question. He describes and plays highlights from three decades of work, and calls for a deeper appreciation of soundscapes that he considers central to humanity's evolution.
"Natural soundscapes are one of the most fertile unexplored sources of information we have. They contain secrets of our origins, our past, our cultural present," he writes in Orchestra.
On the following pages, Krause talks with Wired and shares some of his favorite recordings. Headphones are highly recommended.
In his newly published The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places, Krause answers that question. He describes and plays highlights from three decades of work, and calls for a deeper appreciation of soundscapes that he considers central to humanity's evolution.
"Natural soundscapes are one of the most fertile unexplored sources of information we have. They contain secrets of our origins, our past, our cultural present," he writes in Orchestra.
On the following pages, Krause talks with Wired and shares some of his favorite recordings. Headphones are highly recommended.



