BREACH (2022-2023)

Breach is an electronic and field recording sound concert mixed live by Olivia Block through multiple speakers surrounding the audience. The composition contains field recordings from various locations within the Laguna San Ignacio (San Ignacio lagoon) in the Baja, Mexico, known for . Additionally, Block includes analog synth audio material in response to the field recordings. This piece was completed in the INA GRM studios in Paris, performed at INA GRM on April 14th, 2023.

This composition places the listener in the lagoon from multiple points of view-underwater, on the shore, and inside of imaginary seascapes.
The combination of field recordings and textures creates a subjective, often surreal aural space rather than an objective representation of a location. The sound collage is a framework through we which we might imagine the experience of a listening whale or sea bird.

San Ignacio is the winter home to eastern Pacific gray whales (whose exhalation breaths at the surface water may be heard in some of the recordings). The lagoon is an UNESCO protected, pristine location for the whales to breed and feed. There are boats present in the waters. These boats are necessary for whale monitoring, and the number of boats are strictly limited in the water. In Breach, The recorded presence of the quiet boat sound from the lagoon evolves into loud electronically-produced din of noise seemingly underwater which covers the natural sounds. This moment is a representation of the sonic world outside of the lagoon’s protected waters, where sounds from large sea vessels disrupt the lives of marine animals. As we imagine ourselves swimming, flying, feeding and breathing in the imaginary sound space in Breach we are interrupted by the presence of anthropogenic noises.