Sound Scene 2011 was a fantastic night all-around—live music, installations, soundscapes, beer, pretzel M&M’s and twizzlers, and even a star tortoise signing autographs from his aquarium. Kudos and thanks to all for supporting the effort. Whether you were a listener, a contributor, a superstar organizer, or some combination of the three your presence was felt. And heard.

We wanted to let you know that you can still check out our work from Sound Scene. Here’s a link to the multimedia piece called The Perspective Project produced for Sound Scene 2011 by Teague Lyons, Jess Schreibstein, Saskia de Melker, and myself, Brad Horn. The idea behind the piece was to use the audio from a scene—sometimes the very buried audio from a scene—to offer a different take on the common sights of Washington, DC. Hope you like it, and listen to ya next year!

-Brad Horn

The DC Listening Lounge is proud to present our annual Sound Scene show. This year’s theme is Natural Selections, and will be open for one night only at the Goethe-Institut in Chinatown.  Interactive audio installations, multimedia, and live bands. All the cool species will be there — how about you?

The Goethe-Institut is located at 812 7th Street NW, on the corner of I Street, just north of H Street and the Gallery Place Metro.  The event runs from 8 PM to 11:30 PM.

Congrats to DC Listening Lounger’s Vige and Shea! The Third Coast International Audio Festival recently awarded them Best Documentary: Bronze Award, for “This Can Go On Forever.” This audio piece, a story of adoption and reunion, was originally produced for the DC Listening Lounge and heard in various drafts at our monthly meetings. It first aired for the greater public on NPR’s All Things Considered on Mother’s Day, 2009, and is now getting picked-up by other national and international shows.

> Listen on Third Coast website

In honor of Halloween, Teague Lyons asked eight different people for their best evil cackle.  Some people are better at being evil than others.

> Listen to Raising Your Cackles (1:27)

Listening Lounge recently partnered with the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to produce Audio Portraits.  Head over to the D.C. Convention Center (N Street NW between 7th and 9th), walk down the street, gaze at the photography displayed on the exterior of the windows, pull out your cell phone and dial in to hear the audio portraits!

Photographs on display were selected as part of the “51 Faces of D.C.: Census 2010 Portraits Contest” curated by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and D.C. Counts.

Audio Portraits Exhibit
Where: N Street NW between 7th and 9th
When: LIVE from Thursday July 29, 2010 forward

Flyer design and artwork by Malaka Gharib

DC Listening Lounge presents Sound Scene: Work & Play, Saturday, May 22! This audio-rich event takes place at La Casa Community Center, 3166, Mt Pleasant Street, NW, Washington DC, 20010. 7pm- 11:00pm; suggested donation $6.

In addition to audio installations, there will be live music from the New Atlantis IVtet, The Torches (http://www.facebook.com/TheeTorches), Black Snake in the Daisy Patch, and Weed Tree.

Flyer design and artwork by Malaka Gharib

Eight Listening Lounge producers gathered on the frigid Mall in the nation’s capital last Saturday. The mission: to record one minute of sound. The 60 seconds are strung together here for your enjoyment. It’s not quite 8 minutes flat, but it’s close enough. The producers are listed here in order of the sound clip: Jocelyn Frank, Selena Simmons-Duffin, Tina Tennessen, Ben Pagac, Melati Keye, Dan Poppy, Teague Lyons, and Ben Bloom.

2010 Recording Spree #1: The Mall

Here’s another piece from the body installation at the 2009 Sound Scene. Tina’s niece and nephew consider the guts.

> Listen to Cheerios by Tina Tennessen (1:15)

You’re Hot played at the 2009 Sound Scene installation — here is dj bent’s artist statement: This piece by dj bent documents the first visit to a gun range by her 14 year old god daughter. Guns are controversial, but they exist, and knowledge of their use will be crucial to survive the coming/present apocalypse, whether it includes zombies or not; dj bent and her goddaughter are set on survival. Guns that we shot included two rifles (Savage Arms 64F and Yugo SKS), five semi automatic hand guns (Ruger MK II, Walther P1, Makarov, CZ52 and Colt 1911), and one fully automatic machine gun (NFA HK 416) to cap off the day at Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, Virginia, where they even have zombie posters for target practice. With thanks to our teacher Dexter and help from dj mothersheister and dj rAt.

>Listen to You’re Hot by dj bent (3:02)

Credit: dj bent

This is a recording of the call to prayer and rush hour at sunset in July 2007, recorded by DC Listening Lounge member Maureen Loughran. She writes,”This picture was taken by my sister Kate. It is a view of the mosques across the Nile at sunset, when the recording was done. The squiggly lines in the sky are kites that were flown at this time of day everyday, while the call to prayer was happening.”

> Listen to Cairo by Maureen Loughran (4:20)