“Heavy Metals Lake” is a companion piece to a larger, upcoming project, Lost Waters, and explores the toxic environment in and around Grand Lake in Northeastern Oklahoma through field recordings and sound sculpture.

A popular recreation spot and drinking water reservoir, Grand Lake is downstream from Tar Creek, a designated Superfund site for the past 40 years. Toxic mine runoff flows into Tar Creek and eventually Grand Lake. This watershed also includes Spring River and Neosho River, which come together to form Grand River (the dam on Grand River forms Grand Lake). Two Superfund sites in Missouri and Kansas have toxic waste that flows into the Spring River). “Heavy Metals Lake” uses recordings from Grand Lake and the surrounding area to paint a sonic portrait of the landscape’s often-ignored destruction. Local residents and tribal governments continue to work and advocate for its clean-up and restoration, leaving me with the faint hope that it will one day improve.

“Heavy Metals Lake” utilizes field recordings from the area in combination with musique concrète and ambient composition approaches to blur the lines between the real and imagined; to be immersed in decay and still find aspiration for better.

“Heavy Metals Lake” appears on the new Foxy Digitalis & Jewel Garden compilation, Clarities. Pick up a copy if you haven’t yet HERE.