Chris Watson

"Weather Report"

Touch

www.touchmusic.org.uk

BBC-like. I am not convinced by this work despite every indication that I ought to be. I like Touch. I love field recordings. I love nature sounds. The CD is very listen able: the sounds are wonderfully recorded and attractive, and the locations are exotic and rare. Perhaps that is the problem: the work relies on the exotic in the same way that the BBC fetishizes everything outside of England. Science, politics and journalism blend with glossy graphics resulting in an entertaining if dubious manifestation of British national opinion.

Watson naturally moves away from his own world, England, because he is looking for "pure" sounds which somehow evoke natural compositions. The developed world has too much noise pollution, culture will not be quiet for one second. Naturally a nature recordist would want to get out of London. In this release he goes to Kenya, the Scottish highlands and Iceland, three places famous for their natural wonders. His ear is trained: he does not go for the typical birds and bugs, instead, he finds striking resonance in glaciers, storms and glens.

But in the process of bringing these sounds to England, they lose their context and gain a forced purpose. The resulting work is a documentary with imposed criteria, ambient postcards from the outback. Watson does freelance work for documentaries and natural history, and it shows. His technique is spotless and vibrant. But somehow this is not enough: why does he make these recordings? Watson writes brief liner notes about how the weather creates and shapes all our habitats. This explanation does not go very far. Phenomenology is an extremely limited approach to making art.

Watson edits this work, something he has not done before, which hints at an artistic process. But actually, such seamless editing highlights the emptiness of his craft. He offers no emotion, no personality, and does not achieve some sort of higher revelation which others have suggested in his work. He also does not use scientific methods to uncover science wonders. So, this is neither a self-reflective fine art, nor an objective science.

A. Bergman