Wanderlust #55: Mangrove Drive

Eric Maltz – Mangrove Drive – Field Recording in Indonesia

In 2019 I spent 6 weeks in Indonesia with my family, for the most part in Ubud, Bali, but we also visited the islands of Lombok and Flores. I had my field recorder on almost the whole time. Here is a collage of some of the more interesting environments I found myself in. I used a Tascam DR-100MKIII, usually recording at 24bit/96khz. I would use either the built-in uni-directional microphones, or LOM Audio’s excellent Uši-Pro microphones.

1. Night Frogs in Ubud (00:00-06:18)

The first field recording I did in Bali, maybe even the night we arrived, these frogs sounded incredible and croaked like this for about 2 hours every night. After a while I could almost tell what time of day it was by what insects and animals were making sounds, they all had their moments. These frogs would hang out next to our house, and were not so afraid of me, so I was able to get very close and just leave my recorder outside while they did their thing.

2. Banjar Storytelling (06:19-16:09)

The village Banjar was not so far away from where we were staying, across a rice field maybe 500 meters, one day they were blasting music and talking out of a loudspeaker and it carried quite far, it was clearly for an important occasion but I have no idea which one, or what this man is talking about, although his voice has similar characteristics to the style of story telling in Wayang Kulit (the traditional shadow puppet theatre) so I am going to guess that he is telling some sort of story, most likely from the Rig Veda.

3. Alma Recording (16:10-16:44)

My Daughter Alma, and wife Mónica making a brief appearance. I have a lot of field recordings that begin with Alma “What are you doing?”

4. Ubud Palace Gamelan (16:45-21:47)

The intro to the Ubud Palace Gamelan performance. This was a spectacular show, the music and dancing were incredible. I hid the recorder in my bag, afraid I would get in trouble for recording, later on I realized that it is totally fine to record these performances! This is a piece I love so I also transcribed the beginning of it, and turned it into a song.

5. Mangrove Sunrise in Flores (21:48-31:04)

I love waking up really early and recording, or recording really late. Early mornings and late nights are special times, less activity in the world, people are sleeping, there is a peacefulness not found during the daytime.That was the case this day, I woke up super early, before the sunrise, and walked down the beach to a group of beautiful Mangrove trees, and left my recorder to record, while I walked off on my own to enjoy the sunrise. As you hear, the birds are spectacular, even more interesting, is the constant drone in the background. These are the small boats of fisherman (who also like to wake up early), leaving the island which was across the strait from us. One at a time going out into the open ocean to fish. It was an endless stream, the sound of the motors carried far across the water. An endless OM to accompany the morning symphony of birds.

6. Midnight Ocean on Lombok (31:05-37:52)

On the beach of Lombok, super late at night, I sat for half an hour with my headphones on, listening to the amplified waves as I recorded. `This is a small excerpt.

7. Bamboo Gamelan (37:53-45:58)

I feel this style of Gamelan ensemble is not as well know as its brass counterpart. I really love the depth of sound found in this type of ensemble. It was also really interesting for me to see as I was studying the Rindik at the time, one of the bamboo instruments that make up this ensemble. Beautiful music and dancing.

8. Sunrise in Ubud (45:59-52:08)

I woke up really early just to capture this birds singing, she woke us up every morning, but would always get quiet when I went outside to record. The only solution was to wake up before she did, and leave my recorder recording in anticipation, so thats exactly what I did, hit record, and then went back to bed:)

9. Mangrove Drive (52:09-56:56)

Me walking through Mangroves in Flores, microphones dangling just about the surface of the water. One of my favorite field recordings I’ve done, perhaps because I’m in it?