Скачать или смотреть 根なき浮草 – Floating Without Roots | Harmonica, Detuned Piano & Island Soundscape (Tranquilo Bay)

根なき浮草　水のまにまに漂いて
流れにまかせて行方知らず

Ne naki ukigusa / mizu no manimani tadayoite /
nagare ni makasete yukue shirazu

“Rootless floating grass,
drifting wherever the water leads —
carried by the current, its destination unknown.”
— Ikkyū Sōjun 一休宗純

This piece is a meditation on drift — on being carried rather than directed.

A harmonica lead moves slowly through a near–seven-tone harmonic field, not fixed to a strict temperament, floating above a detuned piano recording made the previous year. The piano behaves like memory here: slightly unstable, already loosening, its harmonies shifting like tides beneath the surface. Together, the harmonica and piano move as overlapping currents — one present, one recalled — neither fully grounding the other.

Around these layers, field recordings of birds, wind, and water recorded at Tranquilo Bay continue to flow. Sounds enter and recede, stretch into long trails, and dissolve into one another, blurring the boundary between foreground and environment. Density gives way to suspension.

The visual material was recorded on Isla Bastimentos and across the surrounding islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago, including Isla Popa, Crawl Cay, and Isla Venado. Moving through narrow channels and open water, the landscape often feels suspended — neither fully land nor sea.

Ikkyū’s image of ukigusa, floating grass, became especially resonant in the mangrove (manglar) vegetation. Mangroves appear rooted and unrooted at once: anchored yet drifting with tides, shaping and reshaping the water around them. Like the music, they exist in a state of quiet passage — not arriving, not departing, simply moving.

🎧 Field Recordings:
Original island soundscapes from this project are available to Patreon supporters.
→   / noahjordan  

🌐 More about my work:
https://www.noahjordan.ca

#SoundArt #Microtonality #Harmonica #FieldRecording #Impermanence