Name: Alëna Korolëva
Nationality: Russian, Canada-based
Occupation: Sound artist, field recordist, composer
Current release: Alëna Korolëva is one of the artists contributing to harkening critters, an epochal, 33-track-encompassing compilation which "tunes in to the plethora of vocalizations, mechanical emanations, and any other acoustics phenomenon produced by animals." The album is available from forms of minutiae.

If you enjoyed this Alëna Korolëva interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Soundcloud, and bandcamp.



What sparked your interest in animal sounds? Are there any memories or experiences with these sounds that you can share?

I’ve always been fascinated with animals and the way they communicate. I believe my autistic brain is fine tuned to seek out connections with the more-than-human world.

Listening and sometimes responding to animal signals brings me joy, I’m always excited when I can add to my collection of animal sound recordings. I record human animals as well, and often treat their voices as melodic signals.

I have hyperacusis, misophonia and sound related synaesthesia which sometimes make me experience sounds on a visceral level. Listening to animal sounds makes me feel connected with them.

What makes animal sounds interesting, inspiring, or just plain beautiful to you? Is there anything that continues to impress you about them?

Animals communicate on the level of raw emotions and direct needs in a language before words, sincere and not self-conscious.

I like how animal vocalizations can resemble human voice intonations, which can sound hilarious, creepy, or remind me of our shared ancestry. The title of a book by Temple Grandin comes to mind again and again: Animals Make Us Human.

Many strange and unfamiliar sounds animals produce make me think about extraterrestrial life forms, they spark curiosity and even threat response. I grew up in a city, and all my wildlife encounters feel magical and fill me with awe.


Did or do you do any research on animal sounds? If so, what were some interesting findings?

It’s probably a well-known fact for many, but I was blown away by finding out that many species have regional dialects and accents. I encountered this phenomenon when I recorded starlings in Portugal; the same species of birds in Lisbon sounded different in the rural area of Borba.

Just like people, birds learn language through imitation, and their sounds are heavily influenced by the environment. With starlings it was especially pronounced because they are masters of acoustic mimicry. The colony based in Borba had a little tune they repeated again and again, it reminded me of sirens and the beeping of excavation machinery in the nearby quarries. Birds took these little tunes and created variations on the same notes, not just repeating but unfolding new songs out of these beeps.

Starlings in Lisbon never made such sounds; probably due to the heavier, multi-layered noise pollution, their songs lacked the nuances I observed in rural areas.

Tell me a bit about your first animal recordings, please.

If we don’t count humans as animals, my first animal recordings were of stray cats and dogs in Tbilisi. I lived there for a while and fed them regularly.

One day I was feeding a dog on a square while a church mass was transmitted on loudspeakers. The dog loudly crunching on kibble sounded hilarious to me against the background of orthodox preaching so I started recording.

I avoided recording birds for a long time, feeling there were too many birders already. But when I moved to another continent, every bird sounded otherworldly. Suddenly I could hear their Mesozoic dinosaur ancestry.

What did your first field recording set-up look like – and how has it changed over time?

When I was 15 I carried my portable cassette player everywhere. After discovering that it had a recording function, I started capturing little scenes in the city. I remember secretly recording someone playing a slot machine and winning: the jingle of coins, electronic beeps, a happy 8-bit tune of the machine, cheering; pigeons taking off from a square.

I had an idea to create a collection of laughter. I was interested in variations of the same expression and wanted to catalog them. But I was disappointed with the sound quality and the difficulties of capturing unpredictable events. So I forgot about it for 20 years until I became obsessed with sounds again.

Do you have an archive of animal sounds? If so, what's in it and how do you use it?

For some reason I have a growing archive of animals eating (crunching, chewing, pecking, slurping, sniffing, licking), excited vocalizations before meals, fighting for food, etc. The need for nourishment is such an intense primal instinct and provides ideal conditions for recording animal communication and self-expression.

It’s funny, I have misophonia which is often triggered by sounds of humans eating, but somehow the sound of pigs enjoying their breakfast provokes different feelings for me although also pretty intense.

I’m currently recording racoons in Toronto. They get very excited and feisty when they manage to find food in backyards and garbage bins.

Tell me about your contribution to harkening critters (forms of minutiae, 2024), please. What were your considerations? When, where and how was it recorded?

My friends (a couple of artists and activists) invited me to their house in Huron County, Ontario, Canada and told me about the continuing efforts of their local community to stop gravel mining in the region.

More than 50 mining sites have transformed the Menesetung river corridor, destroying old-growth forests. Plans for more gravel pits are on the way, backed by hired “experts” who claim in their environmental assessments that there is no significant animal life and specifically noted that there were no amphibians in this area.

I have visited this place several times over the years. I saw deers, rabbits and racoons running through the meadows and forest patches, turtles crossing roads, I heard coyotes in summer, flying geese and the chorus of different species of frogs in spring, whose volume made it hard to sleep at night. I started recording overnight at the sight of the planned gravel pit.

I gathered hours of material and distilled them into an 8 minute track, trying to give voice to some of these invisible creatures. My materials were intended to be used during hearings against the gravel company but I’m not sure if they will be admitted as evidence. In any case I wanted to witness what was happening even if I could not stop it.

Now you've had some time to hear the other pieces on the release, what are some of your favourite recordings by the other participants – and why?

I loved so many! One of my favorites is "χημειοργανοετερότροφες φωνές" by murmer.



It’s an incredible piece of music that masterfully weaves rhythms and textures of microlife with mundane, recognizable sounds of domestic life as if heard from another room, somehow very organically shifting focus to the outside, bringing us to a quiet forest which slowly consumes and overwhelms with layers of signals from every direction. It’s always zooming in and out, showing us that there is no difference or separation, everything is interconnected.

And he does all that from recordings made inside and around his house I guess, no need to travel to the Amazon Rainforest in search of magic when it’s all around us.

The press releases to harkening critters uses the word “signals” to classify the sounds on the CDs. Undeniably, there are many “musical” moments on harkening critters, but how do you feel about using the term “music” for them? What sets “signals” apart from “music”?

I find it interesting to work at the crossroads between music and documented signals. Historically, human music was born from imitating these signals after all. Bird songs are musical, but they are also tools for communication.

I feel the word “signals” is respectful toward animals, it implies that sounds they produce have meaning beyond our aesthetic values, and we need to learn how to listen to them.


Do you think that true creative collaboration between animals and humans, as has been attempted for example by artists like David Rothenberg, is possible? Are there any such collaborations you've engaged in or would like to try?

I’m not sure if it’s a true collaboration or an attempt to reconnect with other species through the emotional power of music, but I find this genre fascinating and fun.

In my last record premonitions (forms of minutiae, 2024) I tried to produce something like that by bringing together recordings of trumpeter swans and trumpet improvisations by my friend Chaika Chekhov who I invited to play along with their voices.

I think this duet worked pretty well, although I can’t call it a true collaboration because the swans didn’t know about it.

Based on your thoughts, experiences, examples, or intuitions, do you think it is possible that examining animal signals will at some point lead to understanding and, eventually, communication? What is your personal threshold for considering interspecies communication successful?

I think we’ve been always communicating with animals, exchanging messages and signals which are sometimes understood, sometimes ignored. Humans send messages of domination to wildlife through omnipresent noise pollution which silences other species or forces them to adapt.

We often hear territorial calls of birds. Every year in May-June in Tkaronto/Toronto where I live, there are clear warning signals from male red-winged blackbirds who ferociously protect the areas around their nests. If you dare pass nearby after their aggressive chirping they attack by dive bombing and pecking your temple. Sounds like very clear communication to me!

I like to think that the human race will develop a more precise understanding of other species through advanced methods of translation, but nothing stops us from just trying to understand the non-human world. Ultimately non-violence and empathy are the main criteria for successful communication no matter the species involved.

Some have argued that recording animals is a form of appropriation and that they should be compensated in some form. Do you have any thoughts on this?

This argument doesn't resonate with me. While I agree that animals should be compensated for the terror they go through because of human domination, I don’t see recording as appropriation by itself. In our time, well-meaning people sometimes misdirect their anger and ethical judgments towards their allies, while lawmakers and corporate actors enjoy impunity.

There are many ethical considerations in documentary work of course, and every practice could be assessed on an individual basis, but calling the process of recording animals appropriation is overkill, in my opinion.

Field recording attempts to compensate for the invisibility of non-human species, to amplify their voices in the midst of an ongoing mass extinction.