Tamtam — Urban Dialog

Crónica Recordings presents Urban Dialog by Tamtam. Tamtam is the Berlin based duo of Sam Auinger and Hannes Strobl who, in their own words, refer to their music as a “practice where the environment becomes the instrument and instrument becomes the sound environment.” While artist blurbs can often mislead, in the case of Tamtam, it’s a description that’s fittingly accurate.

Available in CD and digital formats, Urban Dialog explores a variety of….well….urban situations. Bustling traffic, night creatures chirping away, a dying car engine, billowing exhaust fumes, footsteps on concrete, inaudible voices, powerlines, raindrops, heavy machinery and many other familiar sounds present themselves throughout 51+ minute full-length.. A variety of acoustic and electro-acoustic sounds, crispy electronics, and other sonic detritus coalesce into a wonderfully hypnotic collage of sights and sounds. You can tell a lot of painstaking care and attention was given to every single detail of Urban Dialog, producing just the perfect balancing act between the field recordings and the instrumentation.

I have a deep love for field recordings. They allow my mind to run wild and peer into windows of far off distant places. From the exotic landscapes to urban decay, field recording based albums kind of make me feel like I’m taking a vacation without having to leave my home. Urban Dialog, is another fantastic entry into the ever-widening catalogue of experimental field recordings.