This is my second conversation with Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan, whose work continues to make a meaningful impact around the world. If you missed Part 1 of our interview, be sure to check the link in the show notes.

In this episode, we explore Ian Brennan’s remarkable approach to recording music in some of the most remote and overlooked places on Earth. You’ll hear stories from his travels to Ghana, where he recorded in witch camps, as well as projects in Bhutan and within unhoused communities in Oakland, California—near where he grew up.

This ongoing series highlights more than 50 albums Ian Brennan has produced, many of which have helped local musicians gain international recognition and perform outside their home countries for the first time.

In addition to his work in music production, Ian Brennan is also an accomplished author and a respected expert in nonviolent crisis resolution. In this conversation, we also discuss his book Peace by Peace and the philosophy behind his work.

The excerpts the albums featured in this episode are linked in the show notes.

Karen Power is an Irish composer who uses environmental sounds and acoustic instruments in her intriguing work. She is a master field recordist who has recorded sounds in some of the worlds most isolated and challenging locations including The Arctic, Amazon, Namib Desert, Outback Australia, and Antarctica. She has shared clips of her work including The Bats of Namibia, Frogs of Angor Wat, fascinating bog sounds and arctic ice sounds in collaborations with the Quiet Music Ensemble and many brilliant collaboraters on her project human nature.  She’s also shared with us a raw field recording from her recent trip to record a double cicada brood emergence. She certainly helped deepen my awareness to soundscapes that brought me back to my first encounter with this idea when I took a course on Soundscapes from R. Murray Shafer. Karen and I also talked about her projects working to explore listeneing, composing and improvising with young children and other related projects to provide inclusive music making with people living with disabiliities. 

 Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on your favourite platform, and I’ve also linked the transcript.