Gretchen Jude is a composer and sound artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. We spoke with her while she was in Tokyo, where she was on a fellowship, she has lived and worked in Japan many times over the years.
For Flow, she worked on Segment 17 of the River Lech, near Pitzling, a stretch that the scientists describe plainly: heavily modified, widely lacking natural geomorphic dynamics, not a candidate for restoration. Nothing special or remarkable. A section of river that, in the grand narrative of ecological recovery, barely registers.
But Gretchen listened to the field recording and heard something the data didn’t capture: a drone. A low, persistent hum emanating from the Wasserkraftwerk — the hydropower station — that underlies the rush of water like a hidden ground note. She began to sing along with it, matching her voice to its frequencies, until she found what was there: a D-flat major triad, buried in the industrial hum of a machine converting river into electricity.
That discovery changed everything about the piece. Rather than mourning what the river had lost, Gretchen imagined something stranger and more hopeful — a remystification. What if the goal wasn’t to restore the river to a pre-human state, but to restore our sense of wonder about it in whatever state it is in?
At this segment of the Lech, the river has left its Alpine origins – its wild and icy rapids are just a memory. Data suggest that the Lech is “heavily modified” by human intervention (i.e., channelization, hydroelectric stations). However, at this point in its journey to the Danube, the river Lech (described as “widely lacking natural geomorphic dynamics”) does not merit restoration plans. Here at segment 17, it seems to be considered nothing special or remarkable. Yet I was drawn to the “humming of the power station” in field recording #17. This hypnotic sound highlights the nearby human activities that draw power from the Lech’s steady flow.
The Wasserkraftwerk’s low drone beneath the lively rush of water awakened my examination of the relationship between nature and technology. In creating “Sink, Surface,” I imagined timeless naiadic spirits becoming entranced by the incursion of human technomagic. Their chaotic, playful noises settle into harmonic relation with the device’s drone.
When I first heard that drone, I assumed 50Hz would be most prominent. However, listening deeply and vocalizing along with the rich hum, I found amplitude peaks: at (roughly) 138 Hz, 207 Hz and 350 Hz – very easily translated into a D♭major triad. I decided to filter sweep the white noise of the river itself to alternately remove and enhance the harmonic aspects of the machines. I then vocalized in various styles and timbres for use as compositional materials. I also played with the asymmetrical stereo of the original recording, first filling in the full stereo field, then at the end swapping the louder left channel to the right – a mirror image that reflects one’s change upon emerging from the depths.
How do how human endeavors both rely and impinge upon our ecological contexts? As an imaginary (re)mystification of the River Lech, “Sink, Surface” seeks to dissolve the false divide between the natural world and the human. It invites listeners into the liminal space of the Lech at segment 17 – where the power station emerges a vibrant, animating presence and the river’s sounding spirits call us to experience our own embodied inner flows.
- Gretchen Jude
Flow is a project by Dr Martina Cecchetto, with the scientific contribution of Dr Florian Betz and the artistic curation of Riccardo Fumagalli, in collaboration with Cities & Memory, the University of Padua (Italy), and the University of Würzburg (Germany).
