I wasn’t sure what to expect from the soundscape of the Smoky Mountains in October. I’d been there in the fall 25 years ago, but my memories were mostly confined to images, and a generalized sense of topography. What I found on return was a soundscape of crickets in the valleys, stridulating in a glacial crescendo—from a murmur in the afternoon to a full-blown cacophony in the gloaming of dusk. This was not new to me. It was the sound early autumn from my childhood, living among fields and orchards on the fringe of suburbia.

The soundscape that was truly novel to me, that I’m sharing today, has a little bit of that: the breathing hum of crickets in the early evening. But the real soundmarks come from mammals—squirrels, more plentiful and more active than I can ever recall hearing. This was the sound of peak mast season.

What is mast season? Mast was a term that was new to me. It is taken to mean the food that comes from bushes and trees: fruits, nuts, and seeds. “Hard mast” is principally acorns, beech nuts and hickory nuts, here in the Sugarlands, the western foothills of the Great Smokies. A “mast year” is a particularly abundant year for acorn and nut production, and every indication suggests 2025 was a genuine mast year in southern Appalachia. A 2025 article described, “oak production as the heaviest since 2012, with beech crops heavy enough that ground beneath beech trees was ‘littered with hulls... after squirrels feasted.’"

I was hearing a squirrel feast! Here in the Sugarlands, hardwoods and oak forest commingle, so there's a lot of mast dropping in a small area. Squirrels get frantic and vocal during the harvest push before winter arrives—chattering, barking, leaf-rustling, and branch-shaking as they work the canopy.

It was this abundance, this sense of life in the trees that encouraged me to reach for woodwinds and harmonium-like sounds in my composition. I wanted it to conjure that peace that comes after a hard day’s work feeling. The music bears more than a passing resemblance to my vinyl LP release Wildwood Trail Soundwalk earlier this year. Both are built up very simply with eight slowly morphing chords per movement, stacked in equal measure, set in a slow, breathing tempo.

I rarely have the conviction that any one album is a good starting place for getting to know my work, but as I listen now and write this, it strikes me that this may at least be more accessible than many others. The music is uncomplicated, warm and reassuring. The sound of humming crickets, the rustle of crisp leaves, the crystalline “kuk-quaa” of squirrels chiming out, all come together in a soothing velvet haze—like the “Smoky” blue air from the faraway mountaintops coming down to settle in the valleys, in the slow transition to nightfall.

Thanks for listening and reading along. Appalachian Autumn is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms Friday, October 16th.

Last year, around this time, I travelled to Durham, NC for a record label conference. The city reminded me of Eugene, OR, where I went to school for a short time. Both are university towns. Durham has a bigger population, and is just one node of a much larger urban area, but the downtown cores are similarly compact, pedestrian-friendly, and relatively quiet.

My mission at the conference was to figure out how to grow my business and innovate my way toward prosperity. A tall order. Given that my business model is hyper-niche—capturing environmental recordings and creating instrumental musical suites—I was sifting ideas and prospects, feeling good about taking time to reflect and plan.

As I walked to an evening event downtown, I was taken in by the sound of crickets in a sparsely filled surface parking lot. We have crickets in Oregon, of course, but perhaps not as many in our cities. The sound was both familiar and novel. I had my Sennheiser binaural headset in my pocket, and decided to capture the moment. From there I took a meandering walk into the heart of the city. This is one of my first urban soundwalks in the US—something that had long occurred to me to do, but never seemed particularly promising, aesthetically or commercially.

But, as I was feeling the sensory excitement that comes with being in a new place, I reasoned it was high time to experiment. I let my ears lead the way.

There are urban sounds throughout the recording, but they largely seem confined to the auditory horizon. The near field sound of the city is so quiet it could almost read as pastoral. As I padded into the downtown blocks, a fountain in the plaza of the Durham Convention Center beckoned me toward it. The shimmering sound put me in a kind of audio trance. I just stood there for several minutes—long enough to become self-conscious—figuring passersby might take me for a tweaker staring at the ground. I took a photo of the sidewalk to memorialize the moment.

I felt a peace wash over me there, surrounded by people, cars, trains, energy, life. It was all very ordinary, but as I stood listening, I began to sense the extraordinary qualities of it too. I know that might sound hokey, but it’s true. I tried to convey that feeling in the score. Maybe it will translate, listening to it? That’s the hope, anyways.

Once again, thanks for reading along and listening. Durham Night Soundwalk is available on all music streaming services September 18, 2026.