Sounds Of North American Frogs
There was a time, back in the era just before stereophonic records documenting the sounds of trains began to take control of our hi-fis, that Folkways Records was the king of the field recording. Its catalog boasted seminal recordings likeSounds of Insects,Sounds of the Annual International Sports Car Grand Prix of Watkins Glen, N.Y., and the essentialSounds of the Junk Yard. This classic reissue, originally recorded in 1958, is a prime example of just how offbeat Moses Asch's legendary imprint could get. Here we get the Sonoran desert toad doing his best in mid-warning croak to sound like a CB radio squelching, the childlike scream of the Southern leopard frog, or a full chorus of barking tree frogs. It's 92 tracks of frog sounds with narration by herpetologist Charles M. Bogert--nearly an hour long. Imagine the possibilities...--Jason Verlinde