The Calls Of Twigs And Bog Moss

Field recording seems a dark magus art to many sound designers and composers, yet it is one way to create rich libraries of original material. Put simply, field recording is the process of capturing sounds from the real world, for future use in analysis, archiving, sound design, folly, or composition work. The process of recording these sounds can range from simple to covert to extremely complex. ‘Sounds from the Forest- The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss’ is perhaps the holy grail of field recordings eluding record collectors for over 40 years. Now Zygote Records make the impossible possible with this strictly limited repress of 500.

The wonderfully captured sounds of twigs and bog moss are clearly a spontaneous response to the landscape and habitats they dwell in.

Bryophytes in bogs and mountain forests form a thick carpet, reducing erosion. In forest ecosystems they act like a sponge retaining and slowly releasing water. They provide habitat for other plants as well as microorganisms like N2-fixing blue-green bacteria. 

These evocative recordings range richly from Bog Moss with a dominant Gametophyte to twigs with or without a midrib Thallose liverwort to Liverwort leaf cells with numerous chloroplasts. In some sound passages containing Bryophytes , male and female are borne on separate gametophytes and in other parts of the recordings we get zygotes developing within the archegonium.

A wonderful curio which thanks to Zygote Records is well worth picking up.

Tracklisting –

Side A

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part One: VegetiveTwigs, Fruiting Spurs, Abscission.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Two: Peristone Spores, Male Gametophyte, Calyptra.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Three: Bud Scale Scars, Fruiting Spurs, Young Sporophyte

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Four: Sporangium, Female Gametophyte, Sporgenous Tissue

Side B


The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Five: Archegonium, Operculum, Vegetive Twigs

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Six: Sporopollenin Spores, Filamentous Rhizoids

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Seven: Mass Antherozoid, Biodisc Photomicrograph, Prostrate Xylemphloem Spor