What does melancholy sound like? Â It is an area for debate. Â Top class studio and field engineer Doug Haire proposes these 19 two minute field recordings as exhibiting the “the sublime, dark and beautiful presence of melancholy.” Â I can’t say they evoke the same in me, as some of them sound like peopled places full of activity, instead of desolate soundscapes. Â But Doug is also the first to point out that, “Although it seems at once a very familiar term, it is extraordinarily elusive and enigmatic.” Â So these recordings become part of a dialogue where one person conveys their idea of melancholy through sound. Â Having this conceptual context has made me think differently about what I am hearing on this disc. Â This emotional framework takes the place of the usual recording information provided with field recordings which fix the place and time. Â Here there are no details about where the recordings were made. Â Given only minimal titles, such as “Workshoes” or “Desert Twilight”, the focus of interpretation is instead on the emotional impact of the recordings. Â Knowing Doug’s history, these recordings could have come from all over the world, and probably do represent a diversity of locations and times (Reagan is heard among crickets on “Campaign Trail”; foreign languages appear in many others). Â Were these lonely destinations which found our guide with no companionship but his recording device? Â The framework makes us think of what effect these aural landscapes had on Mr. Haire. Â It makes me interpret the recordings in a different way. Â Aside from these philosophical musings, I should of course point out that the recordings themselves are impeccable as sonic photographs, up there with the esteemed Chris Watson in their quality of capturing a unique moment rather than just being a random event when the recorder was turned on. Â Much of the field recording work being released these days does seem very aimless – the focus being more on capturing the mundane than something of unique character. Â But here the recordings are collected with a purpose, or at least presented with a context in mind. Â This CDR comes in a resealable back with a double-sided postcard as the artwork. Â On the back are a few musings. Â They end with these lines: “What does melancholy sound like? This is the question I have asked.”