Eavesdrop: a wealth of found sound

Eavesdrop: a wealth of found sound is a collection of anonymous recordings found at thrift stores, yard sales, and in trash bins over a four year period. The unaltered tracks come from audio or micro-cassettes, 8-Tracks and home-recorded records. Many of the clips are segments from audio diaries, tape-letters, the sound of road trips, fights, crying, family moments, telephone conversations/messages, or the amusements of children or the mentally handicapped.

A minimum of editing or manipulation was used in the making of this album. I did not add music to the tracks (or mash them up), but instead served as preservationist (or curator) to present the listener with the most powerful recordings in their natural state. Some are funny, some are ridiculous, others make no sense. A few are so 'perfect' I can't believe I actually found them.

Eavesdrop is a scattered documentation of what I call "the golden age of personal recording (1965 - 1986)." It is about the wonder that is putting our experiences, feelings, and lives down on tape. The album's ~80 minutes is spread over 40 tracks. The album includes 28 pages of track notes, transcripts, background information, and additional resources. Album art is a collage of found photos collected over the past two years, and each CD comes with unique "found scraps." In addition to this, six of the album's tracks spawn whole other albums that are available as hand decorated CD-R's. Only $10 (1st Class postage-paid) here, or from my website's Order Page where you will find other releases.

Here are some tracks from the album:

Hamburger Hamlet Two LA socialites tell all regarding a restaurant chain called Hamburger Hamlet.
Trailer Couple An old man forces conversation while learning to use a tape deck. He has no idea the way his conversation interacts with the music he is recording over.
BETA Video An awkward conversation, with pleasant pop culture references.

There are more MP3s on myspace page.

Press

Download a press release (one-sheet) in Word format here.

Eavesdrop as reviewed by the LA Alternative Press in July 2006:
Glowing review of Eavesdrop by the found sound connoisseurs at Aquarius Records in San Francisco!!!
Review of Eavesdrop at www.stylusmagazine.com.

Contact
Email: jacob@jacobsmigel.com

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