If most backpackers are mainly sightseers, Jason Kopec is a soundhearer. Instead of a camera, his primary method of capturing memories is a microphone and field recorder, and he releases his sonic catches from Burma and China in his Ground Up series of discs. (That said, Kopec does also carry a camera and his pictures are beautiful--you can check out both sounds and images on the website of his label, noise|order.)

Kopec calls himself an audio ethnographer, a fact that might draw the ire of cultural anthropologists and ethnomusicologists--not necessarily because he lacks a particular degree, but because his discs lack ethnographic detail. Release the Cheerfulness China: Ground Up 2 contains lovely music and fascinating sounds, but even less contextualizing information than you'll find on your average Sublime Frequencies disc. This lack of context is not surprising, given the producer's fascination with the ways that the familiar sounds of one culture take on new meanings for a visitor from another: Kopec's works are less ethnographies than the audio travel diaries of a self-confessed "sound junkie." I recently asked him about his travels and favorite timbres.

We could start by me asking you what your background is and how you came to travel around China with a microphone and a field recorder...

Well, I'm at heart a sound junkie. I've never been that interested in taking photographs as a way of artistically capturing a feeling, place or person, so my interest in field recording and phonography was in a way inevitable. I began seriously recording in the field in 2000 when I was in South Africa. I had been bouncing around the globe for a spell, and had heard so many amazing sounds that I became more and more interested in the idea of capturing them for future use. After hearing a Kurdish folk group in Van, Turkey give their first public performance after a seven year government crackdown on the PKK and all Kurdish activity, I knew I HAD to get something to start recording such moments. My next major destination happened to be South Africa, so while there I bought a mini-disc recorder and a cheap Sony stereo microphone. I started turning it on at various times when something of interest was happening around me, be it music or an engaging sound.

I then ventured to Burma and became much more focused on my effort. I no longer approached travel as a predominantly visual adventure, but more a sonic one. While there I had so many incredible experiences recording that I managed to amass enough material to put together an album ("Burma 1 - Ground Up 1" on my label noise|order). Burma was the first time I literally spent days walking around a town looking for music and musicians. Since the interactions and situations that resulted from that effort were so enjoyable, it prompted a whole new style of travel and documentation for me. Now I always search incessantly for music and interesting sounds wherever I go, and my previous experiences have allowed me to get much more bold in my approach.

I've now traveled extensively in over 40 countries and have been recording material everywhere I've been since 2000.