it was during the workshop session of acoustic taiyuan: a native soundscape project, more precisely, on aug. 2nd, 2021, that the original recording made by my grandma had been fossicked off from a m size carton of a few hundred cassettes.

as distinguished from taping one’s own unaccompanied singing, which used to be a fad and the outputs of which one would still occasionally dig out in flea fairs, this recording registers a long period of firecrackers cracking with uncontrollability that mumbles, sputters, and spins to become an intumescing cosmos. there are also vocally covered snatches of (p)ops from the late 1980s and early 1990s. since on sept. 1st, 1994, taiyuan municipal government issued a ban on fireworks and firecrackers, the cracking part was very likely to be recorded prior to that day.

*60 copies limited edition* i have been trying but seem to fail to hit, in an e bargain for reach-me-down, another least one self taped noise, which, to be strict, might not be called “field recording” being a concept employed in china probably a decade later and often in either academic tone or professional. however, i believe a number of folks must have done the same.

a friend replied: “surely there were myriads of people who did it, and she was one, and a singular one.”

in memoriam of my dear grandmother
zhang kankan