In the tradition of Environments mastermind Irv Teibel, Numero’s crack team of audio archivists have documented 2024’s once-in-two centuries cicada super bloom phenomena. The collision of the XIX and XIII broods last occurred in 1803, 57 years before the first sound recording was captured, making Numero’s state of the art audio a first in human history. Armed with a Zoom Handy Recorder H4N, Tascam DR-40X, and Olympus LS-12 Linear PCM Recorder, Stephen Arndt, Ken Shipley, and Tim Zawada trawled the forests of central Illinois on the hunt for the mating clicks, ambient screams, and zealous fly-bys of this curious clockwork insect.
The Psychologically Ultimate 220 Year Cicada Super Bloom also marks the return of the Environments series, which bowed in 1979 with Alpine Blizzard and Country Thunderstorm recordings. “Irv Teibel’s visionary Environments helped an ever-disconnecting humanity reconvene with nature and changed the way we heard the world,” Numero co-founder Ken Shipley said. “Numero is honored to resume his work at this critical and uncertain juncture for our planet. We may never experience this confluence of beautiful cicada rackets again, but we’re committed to making sure their deafening buzz continues to ring in our ears long after the last bug molts.”
If you are in the suburbs of Chicago or anywhere else in Central Illinois, probably ok to pass on this but we’d encourage everyone else to put some headphones on, close your eyes and drop out for 20 minutes of deep breathing fern gully fantasies, no bug spray needed.