WGLT Radio, NPR Network, USA: While in Illinois I met with the lovely Charlie Schlenker for a chat, a listen and a walk in Funks Grove, Normal, Illinois. 
https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2024-06-10/composer-captures-the-pulsing-flow-of-cicada-calls

Day 1: Upon arriving into Springfield, Illinois, which was reported to possibly be the only site where both the 17 year and 13 year periodic cicada might overlap, I logged on to the wonderful cicada safari site to see if I could manage a quick listen before sunset. ( A cicada sound day begins around 9:30/10am and ends around 8pm.) It was 6:30pm and I just couldn't wait until morning to get a taste! I headed for Bridgeview Park and was greeted by a swarmed warm chorus that engulfed me. The sonic bliss felt in that opening moment is too great to reduce to my poor use of words, but I can tell you that I was close to happy 🥲 ...
I had been waiting to experience this for many years and was almost at the point of imagining that the experience might fall short under the weight of anticipation.....but rest assured this beautiful body of insects lived up and beyond what I imagined, as I moved gradually between the sonic clouds of coloured hiss and ticks and rested my ears somewhere in the middle of their wall of sonic communication. 

The periodic cicada is truly extraordinary and elevates me to a whole other level of amazement and wonderment. Here is an insect who has successfully evolved by making him/herself unsustainable as a food source!!!! We can't even wait 20 minutes in a restaurant without complaining about the slow service. Now imagine any animal or bird being willing to wait 17 or 13 years for a feed!! 

These creatures spend their whole lives under the ground and only emerge when it's time to mate and die. I am particularly attracted to any life that points towards other ways of living and being in this shared world. We can be so sure of our single version of what it is to be alive that we never even consider that this is just one of many ways of being in the world. These creatures open up an alternative life-cycle that raises questions and perhaps, just even for a moment, encourages us to consider the way we live and interact within this world. We inhabit a world in transition and crisis that is screaming for change. To create change, of the kind that is needed, we must change the way we see, hear and belong within it and transform our ways of thinking and behaving, which have landed us in the ginormous mess we are in. The periodic cicada's extreme life-cycle points to 'other' forms of existence and hopefully gets us thinking. I for one am excited by the possibilities of even being aware of such an existence, and that's before I have experienced their mating calls/songs!
Any of you reading this familiar with my other work, will also understand the cicada connection with my ongoing interest in unearthing hidden sounds and my use of creative field recording to focus on life beneath the surface, which is often forgotten about, but which we impact upon just as much as the life that we see and interact with daily. I kind of think of the cicada emergence as 'sonic payback' for all of the crap that we pump into our earth, which the cicadas live with! They rise, appear to cause a ruckus with their shouting, calling + sex, just before the end of their lives. They temporarily take over small parts of our world and we, for once, have to exist around them!!! Revenge is a dish best served LOUD! 

Pauline Oliveros is largely responsible for encouraging this particular cicada dream. Upon hearing the Cicada Dream Band where she, David Rothenberg and Timothy Hill go out and perform with an emergence, my struggle with what music can be was forever elevated.  🙏 PO and all.
Ever since, I have been determined to place my 👂👂 in the middle of one of these emergences and temporarily relieve myself of being human. I realise this might be a really corny thing to write, but it is part of why I am going. I want to be in a place where I can listen to these calls without trying to 'put myself or my agenda onto them' or try to make them into anything. This is a part of my listening and recording practice that has taken the longest to develop, but its development is vital to my main aim: to let spaces speak and let each environment be heard and recognised for its unique sonic qualities. Anyway, I veer slightly off-blog-topic, but is useful information if you are considering following this blog in the days to come, as a guiding ethos. I am hopeful for an array of luscious and delicious sounds, some of which I will share, and will be working hard to locate them, but perhaps the cicadas will finish early or for some other reason will simply not sound! I should really have been out there this week, but due to commitments will fly on Friday and hope they will continue to call, mate, give birth and eventually shoo their next generation back underground to continue their extra ordinary life cycle.
​You'll have to return on 08/06/2024 to find out what I find......
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