"april showers" - marcos fernandes
"April Showers" - Marcos Fernandes (download here)
from phonography.org, vol. 1 (2001)
released by phonography.org
(file expires on April 14th.)
Good field recordings are deceptively hard to make, especially of things that are simple, like rainstorms or waves crashing. At least when I've tried, unexpected noises have always sullied the result: people talking in the next room, sudden gusts of wind at odd angles to the microphone, etc..
Marcos Fernandes' "April Showers" is the Platonic rainstorm. Water pounds in sheets on the porch roof, its tempo and intensity changing subtly, and -- midway through -- dramatically. A sparser sub-network of percussive drips plays in oblique counter-rhythm to the main drone. Airplanes (I think) cut through the atmosphere far above, issuing parallel rumbles like enormous pieces of construction paper ripping in extreme slow motion.
Sometimes, even if it is April and supposed to rain, it's good to listen in advance to the music you are about to hear.