This work that David Vélez presents us it not “nature” poured on a sound piece, I’d say, but instead it is a sense that David Vélez finds as exteriority, in the jungle of Palomino. With this I want to say that what we listen are not birds singing, or the crickets squealing, or the leaves moving; it’s David who plays his tune through the birds and the crickets from the Palomino territory; he manages for the referred songbird to become an act of listen and not just the recording of a bird, and in the best case, an achievement of emotion that is no longer looking for the natural to just be the content of a sound piece.

In this sense what David shares with us is a sensible experience, which consists in transform sound making into sound listening; and it is through the possibility of the recording that this experience is modulated to be accessible for us. Is through this mediation that the author makes audible something in the exterior, approaching the natural element to what is being heard by the human.

This is the way to validate a consideration about the experience of the human that modulates the nature element, by making that the desire –while drawing us to listen to the birds in the jungle- establish sense after making an interpretation of these silence, acts, interruptions in our sound space. These sounds are ways of being for the human in the jungle fauna.

The act of listening is therefore, a transference of sense through the sonority of the environment, and in this case also a way to experience an environment by recording, ordering, modulating and presenting it in this way that David Vélez considered as the most appropriated.

“El pájaro que escucha” is a cultural approximation to the natural. There is no birdsongs without hearing and no acoustic experience without sensible language.

-Trixi Alina. Full Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Visual artists, Magister in Anthropology

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El Pájaro que Escucha is a beautifully crafted publication that brings together field recordings made in the Palomino region of Columbia in January 2012. The piece is alive with the sounds of wildlife, completely immersing the listener in a sonic landscape that has depth, variation and a subtle radiance that is a joy to experience. 
At times we are also reminded of the invasive presence of human beings, with the drone of a light aircraft pervading the natural atmosphere. Velez demonstrates an acute awareness of the beauty found in the natural world, focusing primarily on the sounds of animals that call the rainforest home. El Pájaro que Escucha does not rush the listener, but rather encourages patience and an appreciation for the natural sounds of our planet. This is a stunning release of the highest calibre and comes highly recommended.

-Cheryl Tipp. Wildlife Sounds Curator at the British Library