Jim Nollman - Orcas' Greatest Hits Jim Nollman

Jim Nollman is a sound artist and author who has dedicated his practice to playing music with non-human individuals. Following his 1982 album on Folkways, Playing Music with Animals, Nollman established an artistic residency and community space at a cove in British Columbia, dubbed Orcananda after the orca residents that have dwelled in its deep waters for centuries.

Nollman and his cohort took a considered approach to developing sonic relationships with the orcas and other animals they encountered, always keeping a respectful distance as they found one another with their ears. Orcas' Greatest Hits collects hydrophone recordings drawn from over 60 hours of interspecies collaboration recorded between 1985 and 2002, showing the playful ways in which Nollman engaged the orcas from the portable studio floating above their home. What we hear is the focused listening by the cetaceans and humans as they search out sonic space among one another, finding in that dialogue potential common ground for deeper understanding.

One of the first albums to ever be recorded entirely underwater, from a floating studio via "hydrophone." Orcas' Greatest Hits fits with Smithsonian Folkways' tradition of documenting the arts of American subcultures and countercultures, in this case the cross-section of avant-garde art and naturalism.