NYC Standstill by Volker Lankow, with Geoff Gersh (field recordings)

When NYC Sounds Covid 19 first came to my ears, I was thrilled. Geoff Gersh said about his work:
"A couple of days into NYC’s Corona Virus quarantine, I realized the city was entering a period where it would be the quietest it's ever been in modern times.
It was amazing to consider that the sound of the city, where people, cars, trucks, buses, trains and planes are active all hours of the day and night, reached a near halt on March 20th.
I decided then to document the iconic parts of the city that would normally be bustling with tourists and locals alike, setting off to record a compiled list of about 40 locations.
Half way through the list, I was compelled by the idea of making a field recording in every single neighborhood in all five boroughs of the city to document the new sonic landscape of this unique moment in history.
I started doing some research, and while the exact number is a topic for debate, I came up with around 375 neighborhoods that I would need to visit.
Using printed maps of each borough, I drove to each neighborhood and made recordings without leaving my car. For most of these aural documents, I would arrive at my destination, stick the microphones out of the window, record for 5 minutes, then move on to the next location. I did this week after week starting March 23rd and finishing on June 7th, probably driving around 3,000 miles in the process."

A common friend of Geoff and me (the philosoph, writer and musician David Rothenberg) told me about Geoff and his amazing field recordings.
I immediately got moving and downloaded the field recordings, which are available on 5 albums on Bandcamp (https://nycsoundscovid19.com/ ), and took a closer look at 17 tracks. The reason I chose these 17 tracks is because I stayed at these places (Mainly Manhattan and Brooklyn) during two stays in NYC and saw and experienced them at "normal" times. I tried to capture the stillness at these venues and the moods that Geoff recorded there with my kind of music. I hope that this is also in the spirit of Geoff.

Percussionist since the late seventies, Volker Lankow lives in Berlin, plays and collaborates in many diverse projects, such as together with Bernhard Wöstheinrich, David Rothenberg, to name a few.
Volker works on many Solo projects, using mainly electronics and as well percussions, to develop his own vison of experimental sounds, drones and as well world music.

Facebook