ICOSA SOUNDSCAPE | MARCH 30-APRIL 24, 2026
Since 2018, Barry Stone, solo and with others has explored the relationship between sound and image in his ongoing project Porch Swing Orchestra. Stone plays acoustic guitar with a Fahey-inspired fingerpicking style woven through with electronic effects: something like My Bloody Valentine for a campfire. Sounds of the environment, bird calls, stray conversations, and passing cars become part of the music.
This soundscape was created for and packaged with Boom and Dust, an accordion-fold photobook made in collaboration with Jason Reed. The book creates a continuous 58-foot image of a 40-mile corridor of the highway between Midland and Odessa at the heart of the oil industry in the Permian Basin.
The piece unfolds in two parts. The first, thirteen minutes, is the book's companion. It includes acoustic guitar improvisations recorded in the former company town of Texon in the shadow of the Santa Rita No. 1 layered with field recordings of gas flares, trucks bearing down on the highway, produced water lakes, and lap steel. The second, fourteen minutes, is a new work drawn from the same trip. Evoking a late-night AM radio dial scan, it is composed of a cassette tape purchased in Big Spring, Texas set against guitar recorded at dusk at the intersection of Highways 67 and 90 outside Alpine.
BOOM and DUST 12:50
The Most Beloved Hymns in Alpine, TX, 14:20
Total playing time 27:04
Guitar, lap steel, field recordings, and mixed by Barry Stone
More at Porchswingorchestra.org
This soundscape was created for and packaged with Boom and Dust, an accordion-fold photobook made in collaboration with Jason Reed. The book creates a continuous 58-foot image of a 40-mile corridor of the highway between Midland and Odessa at the heart of the oil industry in the Permian Basin.
The piece unfolds in two parts. The first, thirteen minutes, is the book's companion. It includes acoustic guitar improvisations recorded in the former company town of Texon in the shadow of the Santa Rita No. 1 layered with field recordings of gas flares, trucks bearing down on the highway, produced water lakes, and lap steel. The second, fourteen minutes, is a new work drawn from the same trip. Evoking a late-night AM radio dial scan, it is composed of a cassette tape purchased in Big Spring, Texas set against guitar recorded at dusk at the intersection of Highways 67 and 90 outside Alpine.
BOOM and DUST 12:50
The Most Beloved Hymns in Alpine, TX, 14:20
Total playing time 27:04
Guitar, lap steel, field recordings, and mixed by Barry Stone
More at Porchswingorchestra.org
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Orchestra Players:
Gregory Brooks, Bob Warner, Emily Scarlet Kramer, Rainey Knudson, Ryan Lauderdale, Tamara Gonzales, Katy Chrisler, Gibson + Recoder, Paul Stautinger, Sarah Hennies, Eric Zimmerman, Matt Bauer, Sandy Carson, Ryan Rhodes, Rebecca Marino, Shannon Spurgeon, Aaron Winslow, Ivy Stone, Mark Menjivar, Gavin Watts, Ryan Sprott, Brad Tucker, Caleb Churchill, John Hunt, Audra Wolowiec, Lauren Grant, Bill McCullough, Henry Smith, Anthony Francis, Xavier Gilmore, Ana Treviño, Ariana Gomez, Jessica Mallios, Thomas Hooper, SKLOSS, The Reformers, Zuriel Waters, Joe Williams, Jason Reed, Adam Henry, Saumon Oboudiyat, Hannah Spector
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