Bad Waters is a March 2023 research project and music release by Brooklyn’s Tired Circuits.
The project aggregates data from the EPA, the US Treasury, academia, watchdog groups, and the finance sector to draw connections between top water polluting companies and government contracts and funding.
Billion dollar corporations are dumping millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into our waterways, acknowledging and reporting those releases to the EPA, and paying the fines leveraged against them. But those fines are a tiny percentile of the massive government contracts and tax breaks these companies receive, and a minuscule fraction of their annual revenue.
Using custom code, Tired Circuits’ Joshua Dumas sonified that data, mapping toxic release, revenue, federal contracts, etc to elements like distortion, pitch, and waveform to build noisy soundscapes. He then composed piano melodies atop those soundbeds while viewing slideshows of the affected towns and waterways. The result is ten short pieces of witness, accusation, grief, and nostalgia.
Listen on Bandcamp.
Recorded and Mixed by Joshua Dumas at Curséd Pipes, Brooklyn NY and Russell Street Recording, Brooklyn NY.
Mastered by Scott Craggs at Old Colony Mastering, Scituate RI.
Special thanks to Carlos Hernandez, Political Economy Research Institute at UMASS, Corporate Research Project, Andy Wagner, Scott Craggs.
If you are working for ecological justice, independently or through an org: you may use this music for free in any of your own promotional materials. Please write me and I will happily and promptly provide sync release paperwork.
This music is dedicated to Water Defenders everywhere.
