Addendum to "The Weight of the Record" — The Crows, Captured

Added later the same day, October 30, 2026.

The small form held. This morning's post went out, and then I went out — before 7:00, down to the dock, to photograph the church of Saint-Mathieu-de-Beloeil across the river. I stayed for the Blue Hour only today; there was no need to wait for gold. The birds were clement with me: vociferation loud and clear, smaller birds chirping in the background on the church grounds — and the dawn crow roosting behaviour, the capture that failed outright yesterday, was recorded in full. The crows crossed directly overhead, over the small area where I live. They pass here often, it turns out. It is a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and this morning I was.

One take stands out: six and a half minutes, unbroken. To my ear in the field it was the perfect take. A listening session will confirm it; if it sounds the way it sounded, the whole file becomes a piece of ambient experimental sound design, as it stands.

The morning's record. Seven recordings, 17 minutes 21 seconds, 06:53 to 07:23 — the first opened as I set out, the last closed minutes before I reached my door. Photographs throughout, the church in the Blue Hour.

The night before the morning. Part of last night was spent making music — sound design, writing with samples drawn from these recent recordings. About a year ago I started an album called DAYBREAK, and I have just realized something I did not plan: I have been finishing it without knowing it, one dawn at a time. Some of this new material will also serve the Symphonie du Vieux Village, the long work of ten years of art-research in this village, whose archive runs to thousands of files and hundreds of gigabytes. The expeditions are small. What they feed is not.

The return leg. An expedition ends when the files are home: devices set to warm before they are plugged in (cold gear meets warm room air and sweats — patience is the cheap protection), the recordings onto the laptop, the property logs run. Uploading, downloading, backing up, sending myself files — the unglamorous half of fieldwork, and part of the record from now on.

— A.G.