Sound Circle at The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado
Sound Circle went on a profoundly interesting sonic adventure in June 2017.  Our new recording, Invitation: Sonic Explorations, contains ten soundscapes created/recorded during two days at the TANK Center for Sonic Arts in collaboration with producer Bob Burnham.
 
Rangely. Colorado, is the home of the TANK Center for Sonic Arts, which is the new incarnation of what used to be known simply as “the tank.” This tank’s original function was to store water for steam engines on the railroads. At some point, it was relocated to a hill on the edge of Rangely—and then deemed unsafe to hold water in that location, so it just sat empty. It had been a hang-out spot for local teens and a secret mecca for musicians in the know for forty years. I had heard mention of it from Boulder musician friends in the past, but never quite understood what it was. When the tank was on the verge of demolition a few years ago, a core group of the people who had been making music there decided to rescue it with a vision of making it more accessible. A couple of Kickstarter campaigns later, the TANK Center for Sonic Arts has a door; formerly, one crawled through a small round portal. There are electric lights instead of candles or an extension cord from the neighbor’s house. There’s a brand new recording studio adjacent to the Tank, in a donated shipping container. Composer and sound artist Bruce Odland has been one of the visionaries throughout this transformation, as was Boulder musician Lois LaFond, and I talked with them at length before we went.
 
The short version of my experience there is that it is the most interesting musical experience I’ve had in a long time—perhaps, ever. My ears and my musical heart and mind have been invited into new realms of curiosity and enthusiasm. I could hear the effect as I engaged in repertoire search this summer; my ears were craving color. There’s a lot to think about at the Tank in regard to just intonation and overtone series. The Tank is a large ½” thick metal structure, rusty and graffiti-ed, strikingly tall at 65 feet, with a slightly convex curved floor. A fortuitous combination of structural qualities create an astonishingly long reverb time, but what happens is much more than simply a long decay of sound. One’s own sound sets the Tank sound into play—the Tank sings—and immediately the experience is about engaging with the Tank sound in a compelling musical conversation, a layering of sound, a kind of slow-motion acoustic choreography. We created qualities of sound and engaged in a process of musical unfolding that I could never have imagined before I stepped into the Tank, and that we could never replicate outside the Tank. In a time when sane discourse in public life is in short supply, I have been sincerely heartened by the organic sanity of this wordless discourse. It is the sound of people being exquisitely present with each other: listening, offering, responding, receiving.
 
Some singers were relieved to experience the Tank as “friendly.” It isn’t claustrophobic. I wouldn’t call it womb-like but I heard others use that phrase. The first time I stepped in and heard the sound (there was a viola player inside at that moment), I had the thought that I wanted to stay there forever. Since that’s not literally true, I’ve marveled about what kind of neurological/physiological/emotional/spiritual experience inspired that response. A local woman, an Army veteran, spoke to me about the Tank’s catalytic impact on her healing from PTSD.
 
Sound Circle does a lot of simple free-form improvisation, so we were primed to be comfortable with a free kind of sonic exploration, but individuals in the group who were less comfortable with improvisation reported feeling supported and encouraged by the way the Tank holds the sound, and said they expected it would have a lasting impact outside the Tank. We sang songs, too. My personal feeling is that the experience of engaging with the Tank sound is what’s most interesting, and that happens in improvisation. Songs can quickly get muddy, and they can wrestle with the Tank’s acoustic field rather than complement it. My sense is that composition for performance in the Tank would most naturally take the form of road maps rather than specifics. I’m interested to see how my own musical imagination develops on return visits. I think there’s an endlessly fascinating learning curve.

While Sound Circle was there, we sang a free concert at the local high school for members of the community. The Tank staff is intent on deepening relationships between Tank and town. They ask that people share something with the town when they come to be in the Tank, and they offer ideas and support.
 
The tanksounds.org website has information about how to come and play/record in the Tank, as well as sound clips. Some basics: The Tank “season” is April through October. During the summer, as the Tank sits exposed to full sunlight, it gets too hot to be inside during the day, so we sang from about 9:00-noon, and then in the evening from about 7:00-10:00 pm. Rangely is near Dinosaur National Monument, where the Yampa River flows into the Green River. There’s gorgeous scenic driving to be done, great hiking, overlooks, and dinosaur fossils—some of which could be done on days at the Tank, but more comfortably done on either side of a Tank visit. There’s a rock art tour closer to Rangely. There are just a few restaurants in town, a motel that gives a discount to Tank visitors, a sweet and shady camper park, and a small grocery store. It takes one minute to drive from one end of town to the other.

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