180 copies limited edition Most of this was recorded by putting microphones where you would not normally put them. E. Jason Gibbs worked in drainages and vent pipes, against dock timbers and the surfaces of steel and concrete structures, inside electrical boxes. The result is a harbour heard through its own infrastructure rather than from a vantage point, with the bay arriving indirectly, conducted through metal and stone before it reaches the microphone.
Fish Point is part of the Eastern Promenade, a 68-acre city park on the Portland waterfront in Maine, in the neighbourhood where Gibbs lives. It has sweeping views over Casco Bay and the bay is busy: shipping traffic, barges, commercial fishing, tugboats, ferries coming and going from the islands, sailboats, an increasing number of yachts, tourists paddling, cruise ships. Nearby are public beaches, municipal boat ramps and moorings, the water treatment facility, and a historic narrow gauge railroad. Fish Point itself sits off a multi-use trail running along the waterfront.
The land behind has changed faster than the water. The area around Fish Point used to be semi-abandoned industrial buildings; in recent years a historic block was torn down and rebuilt as a luxury marina, hotels, restaurants, office buildings that sit empty, and eventually condominiums. Fencing and private property signs around the marina have closed off much of the public access to the waterfront, and Gibbs is direct about the consequence: the character of the area has fundamentally changed.
What the recordings hold alongside that is everything the redevelopment has not displaced. Along the same stretch there are many unhoused people, sleeping in sparsely wooded areas or out in the open. There is also abundant bird activity, along with foxes, rabbits, woodchucks, weasels, fishers and an abundance of rats. None of this is narrated on the disc. It is simply the set of things happening within earshot, and the composition holds them at the same level, which is its argument.
CD, limited to 180 copies.
