A Natural History of Southwestern Ontario
Text & reading by Christopher Dewdney
Soundscapes by Steve Venright
with Gordon Nicholson
2.5 hours—double CD

Released 29 October 2004
(co-release with Coach House Books)
Double CD includes lavishly illustrated full colour 16-page booklet
with notes by Chris Dewdney and Steve Venright

A Natural History of Southwestern Ontario is author Christopher Dewdney's fascinating poetic exploration of the landscape, creatures and atmospheric phenomena of Canada's southernmost region. Published in instalments over the past three decades, this work can now be heard in its entirety, spoken by the author and vividly orchestrated with the sounds of the terrain it celebrates.

Steve Venright's two-and-a-half-hour sonic interpretation is composed of over five hundred original recordings made at locations specific to the text. Dewdney's masterpiece is taken to a new experiential realm in one of the most ambitious soundscapes ever created—a hyperlucid, sometimes hallucinatory domain of time winds, spring trances and Cenozoic asylums. Primal, erotic, cerebral and exalted, A Natural History of Southwestern Ontario will envelop you in the visionary landscape of one of Canada's most adventurous poets.

Christopher Dewdney text & reading
Steve Venright field recordings, soundscapes & audio engineering
Gordon Nicholson soundscape collaboration/audio engineering on
Spring Trances in the Control Emerald Night

THE CENOZOIC ASYLUM
GRID ERECTILE
SPRING TRANCES IN THE CONTROL EMERALD NIGHT
CONCORDAT PROVISO ASCENDANT
TIME WIND

MP3s:
• Concordat Proviso Ascendant (track 3) 1.5MB mp3
• Cenozoic Asylum DEMO (excerpt 1) 4.8MB mp3

Selected images by Steve Venright
from the Natural History CD booklet: