Towards a Practice of Palimpsestic Listening

Abstract

This article invites reflection on the ambiguity of sonic temporalities as the lines between physicality and immediacy become increasingly blurred. Through the notion that digital technologies are haunted by analogic process, I foreground the concept of Palimpsestic Listening to explore the musical qualities and critical resonances of sonic acts and objects in hybrid physical/digital systems that evoke layered temporalities that are ‘historically distinct nonetheless linked’. I also seek to illustrate the significance of engaging practically with this concept by discussing the methods behind my composition D/ta Ro} – A Dialectical Trash Heap, a sound installation that interrogates the relationship between sonic materiality and digital audio processing and how acts of erasure and time-stretching might influence the layering of disparate sound materials.