I have now had the opportunity to follow up on the work of composer Cheryl E. Leonard by listening to two of her earlier albums. Like Antarctica: Music from the Ice, Chattermarks is a collection of fifteen field recordings made in January of 2009 during a visit to Palmer Station in Antarctica. Six of the tracks involve animal sounds of Adélie penguins and elephant seals, respectively. The others involve different aspects of relations between ice and water. As was the case with the Antarctica album, there is more diversity across these tracks than one might expect. Sadly, Chattermarks does not include quite as informative a booklet. However, it is a jacket that unfolds to provide capsule accounts of each of the tracks, a series of color photographs, and background material about Palmer Station itself.
Cover design for Littoral (from the Recordings Web page on Cheryl E. Leonard’s Web site)
A more recent release, Littoral, came out in December of 2023 and was probably recorded earlier in the year. It consists of a single track with a duration of slightly more than half an hour. No text is included with the album. However, Leonard provided the following description for its Web site:
A sonic love letter to the Northern California Coast, this long-form composition journeys landwards: from the open Pacific, through surf breaking on rocky and sandy shores, then onto/inside beaches, tidepools, wetlands, and lagoons. Along the way, coastal ecosystems and soundscapes are examined and re-imagined. Littoral is anchored in field recordings from Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin Headlands, and MacKerricher State Park. Voices from driftwood, stones, shells, and kelp are carefully combined with these recordings into a piece that transports listeners to — and into — Northern California seashores.
One may not be able to sort out the different sources, but one can still enjoy the journey as Leonard described it.
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