The Field Works Listener's Guide

Stuart Hyatt, Janneane Blevins & Benjamin Blevins [Eds.]

'What we really want is something worth listening to. There is still some beauty to be heard. And Stuart Hyatt, through his fine insights and talent, compels us to do just that.'

- Bernie Krause - Author of The Great Animal Orchestra

For Stuart Hyatt, the world itself is a recording studio where people, places, and things become the instruments. Hyatt has spent the last four years collecting these sounds and arranging them into uniquely site-responsive music. Working collaboratively under the name Field Works, musicians from around the world have contributed over 50 new compositions to this massive collection. 

In Metaphonics The Field Works Listener’s Guide, Hyatt contributes a complete track-by-track guide to the 7-album Field Works box set, addressing from many angles the interpretation of place through sound. Renowned naturalist Bernie Krause writes the book’s foreword, establishing a taxonomy of the soundscapes explored in the book’s essays: geophony (earth sounds), biophony (animal sounds), anthropophony (human sounds) and cosmophony (sounds from outer space). 

Designed by Janneane and Benjamin Blevins of PRINTtEXT, the book features original contributions from Cheryl Tipp, Leah Barclay, Gustavo Valdivia, Enrique Ramirez, Yiorgis Sakellariou, Sarah Laskow, Stuart Fowkes, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Manuja Waldia, and Peter Liversidge. 

Metaphonics is released in partnership with Brooklyn-based record label Temporary Residence and includes an audio download card of the entire Field Works collection, featuring never- before-heard music from Juana Molina, The Field, Lali Puna, Pantha du Prince, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Eluvium, Dan Deacon, Matmos, Dntel, Gazelle Twin, Visible Cloaks, The Album Leaf, Loscil, Paul De Jong, Mary Lattimore, Lusine, B Fleischmann, William Tyler, Nick Zammuto, Rafiq Bhatia, Lullatone, Benoit Pioulard, Luke Abbott, Marcus Fischer, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Julien Marchal and many others.