In Arizona’s Sonoran Desert just north of Phoenix, a gentle spring rain falls in the first hours after sunrise. Richard Lerman, strapped with video gear, headset, and cables, is crouched next to a compass cactus weaving wires in and out of its needles. Attached to the wires are tiny, hand-built microphones carefully placed to record both the rain and the internal natural acoustics of the cactus. He stands back, adjusts the volume on his recording device, and takes in the sound. The rain gently plucks at the cactus needles, creating music not unlike the plucking of violin strings. “I’ve recorded the sounds of rainfall plucking cactus needles, wind-harps strung between Saguaro cacti, hummingbirds hovering around ocotillo, bees in ironwoods, and ants crawling around desperately trying to move my mikes along the desert floor.
I’ve even recorded one of our torrid monsoons,” he says. His desert gatherings are an extension of the work he has pursued through sound-both natural and created. Entracte by René Clair ( 1924 ) La Coquille et le clergyman by Germaine Dulac, screenplay by Antonin Artaud ( 1928 ) Un chien andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí ( 1929 ) LÉtoile de mer by Man Ray (1928) LÂge dor by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí ( 1930 ) Le Sang dun poète by Jean Cocteau (1930. Inspired by the music he “sees” and hears in the Sonoran’s natural environment, he documents a sense of place and creates a composition based on rich symphonic sound and the desert landscape. Packed with novel editorial narratives and bursts of quirkiness, Cactus magazine is a. “Composers have been investigating new ways to orchestrate for centuries. weighing one kilo and containing 200 pages of surrealist goodness.
I see my work as part of that continuum,” Lerman says.
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