Album cover featuring a vintage black-and-white illustration of a frog beneath the title Bow Hard at the Frog in green lettering.

Bow Hard at the Frog |
Corbett vs Dempster

publications

Fred Lonberg-Holm and the Amphibians of the Everglades featuring Gustavo Matamoros

Single-disc audio CD
Corbett vs. Dempsey | CVSDCD044
Released May 4, 2018
Six tracks

Bow Hard at the Frog began during Fred Lonberg-Holm’s 2016 iSAW residency at Audiotheque. While we were talking about my overnight recording trips into the Everglades, Fred expressed an interest in joining me and bringing his cello.

On the evening of February 2, 2016, I took him to a location in Everglades National Park informally known as the “bridge to nowhere.” A boardwalk extends from the road and ends abruptly beside a pond-like area where Cuban tree frogs are abundant. Fred bowed and plucked his cello in response to the surrounding frogs, insects, water sounds and other activity of the night.

I recorded the interaction using Sennheiser microphones in a mid-side configuration connected directly to a Sound Devices digital field recorder. My role was not simply to document Fred’s playing, but to capture a soundscape in which the cello and its living environment could be heard in relation to one another. The titles Near and Far refer to the microphone’s perspective in relation to the cello.

I prepared the first edit of the recordings. Fred then made his own selection, after which I reworked the tracks into their final form. Alex Inglizian mastered the album at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, ensuring that the delicate insect and frog chatter remained clear alongside the cello.

Fred proposed the project to Corbett vs. Dempsey. The release was produced by label co-founder John Corbett and issued as a single audio CD in the cardboard gatefold packaging characteristic of the label’s music catalog. A photograph by Sima Dhesi appears inside the sleeve.

The title comes from a performance direction in Iannis Xenakis’s cello composition Kottos.

TRACK LIST

  1. Far 1
  2. Near 2
  3. Far 4
  4. Far 3
  5. Near 1
  6. Far 2

CREDITS

Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello
Amphibians of the Everglades: sounds
Gustavo Matamoros: field recording, soundscape composition and editing
Alex Inglizian: mastering at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago
John Corbett: producer
Sima Dhesi: inside-sleeve photograph

Purchase Bow Hard at the Frog from Corbett vs. Dempsey.

LIVE SPATIAL REALIZATION

On August 13, 2019, Fred and I presented the world premiere of a live version of Bow Hard at the Frog during the Deep Listening Festival at LAXART in West Hollywood, California. Fred performed live over a four-point spatialized realization of the Everglades soundscape, which I diffused through the space.

The program also included a version of my 2013 recording Distant Bats.

Audience members gathering among rows of white folding chairs beneath LAXART’s large circular-patterned translucent ceiling.
Audience gathering at LAXART for the live spatial realization of Bow Hard at the Frog, Deep Listening Festival, August 13, 2019. Photograph courtesy of LAXART.

REVIEW

Page from Jacki Apple’s Fabrik review of Bow Hard at the Frog, with an inset image of Fred Lonberg-Holm playing cello and Gustavo Matamoros performing the spatialized soundscape.
Excerpt from Jacki Apple, “Conversing with Nature, Confronting Extinction,” Fabrik, October 13, 2019.

Jacki Apple reviewed the LAXART performance in “Conversing with Nature, Confronting Extinction,” published by Fabrik. Link to select article content.

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