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Characters at the Water Margin

by Loren Chasse

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1.
whistling across the oars 07:19
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2.
arrangement for two phases of the moon 06:26
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3.
ovoids for a tumbling pattern 03:23
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4.
setting a dry thing upright 04:55
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5.
striking cedar tongues 07:52
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6.
handfuls on an edge of foam 05:56
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7.
a shell comb and a cinder ring 02:10
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8.
a pause from sifting brings the wind at last 06:29
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9.
the rope to the shore 09:07
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about

These recordings were made at the edge of Washington state's Olympic Rainforest, where the Hoh River meets the Pacific Ocean. The point of entry to this landscape, named Oil City on the map, is no more than a place where the road widens before coming to an end at a trailhead. Just north of the road, through the trees, and on the homestead of the late Captain Hank who one day disappeared at sea, is the ghost of an oil rig and some comings and goings along a plank road. Early 20th century settlers had been ambitious to start an oil industry here but it just never took off.
Chalá-at, or Hoh, legend describes a race of upside down people who once lived on this shore and went about their domestic lives rather inefficiently until a transformer-god, K'wati, set them upright. Can it be inferred, then, that the Chalá-at also listened at ground level?
Massive cedar, Sitka spruce, and Douglas fir logs pile up here on a dense litter of granitic pebbles and driftwood, all worn smooth by the sea. The surf resonates in countless hollows across this implied architecture. Elevated walkways bridge the sea wrack and lead to secluded rooms with makeshift furniture and fire rings on floors of stone and sand. A dense rainforest rises steeply behind this beach. Human passage between Oil City and the mouth of the river, and at the jut of rock on the way to Jefferson Cove, is strictly regulated by a fearsome tide. The animals of this seashore, though rarely seen, have upon each and every surface left a shadow scattered.

Recorded, amplified, and re-recorded on location in Washington and variously edited at home in Portland, Oregon.
2010-2013
for Charlotte, Lily, Dawn, and Bill

credits

released September 29, 2014

Thank you to Daniel Crokaert for commissioning and originally releasing this work as a CD on Unfathomless, 2014.

Copies still available at:
unfathomless.wordpress.com/releases/u22-loren-chasse/

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Loren Chasse Portland, Oregon

Loren Chasse's current projects include himself, So I'm As You'll, and Latourel. Past projects include idBattery, Of, Thuja, The Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Coelacanth, the Jewelled Antler label, collaborations with Derek Eklund, Juho Toivonen, Caspar Sonnet, Keith Evans, and Michael Northam composing for TopShake Dance Company, and performing with Portland's Extradition ensemble. ... more

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