PODCAST · music
Soundwalk
by Chad Crouch
Soundwalk combines roving field recordings with an original musical score. Each episode introduces you to a sound-rich environment, and embarks on an immersive listening journey. chadcrouch.substack.com
Episodes
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Appalachian Autumn
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the soundscape of the Smoky Mountains in October. I’d been there in the fall 25 years ago, but my memories were mostly confined to images, and a generalized sense of topography. What I found on return was a soundscape of crickets in the valleys, stridulating in a...
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Panthertown Valley
Panthertown Valley is a relatively small 6311-acre wilderness area in Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s a little bit off the beaten track, but far from obscure, as the old promoter’s trick of slapping the label “Yosemite of the East” seems to...
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Durham Night Soundwalk
Last year, around this time, I travelled to Durham, NC for a record label conference. The city reminded me of Eugene, OR, where I went to school for a short time. Both are university towns. Durham has a bigger population, and is just one node of a much larger urban area, but the downtown cores…
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Burnt Lake
What is the hike up to Burnt Lake without the greyed spectral snags of ancient old growth, killed, but not entirely destroyed, by fire? Would it be like walking through a graveyard with no gravestones? The stand of trees along the trail is uniform, almost homogenous. A mix of hemlock and...
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Holland Park Soundwalk
Today we are visiting Holland Park in west central London. But before we do, let’s zoom out. If you look at a map of central London you’ll see, within the spiderweb of roadways fanning out from the Thames, hundreds of small green rectilinear plots. Where I live, on the west coast of the United...
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Vondelpark Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Before I begin, just a quick plug for my son, Sam, who I’ve mentioned briefly on here. Today marks the release of his first single, ever; “Tides”. Sam has developed really quickly in the last year. He started...
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Newcastle, UK Soundwalk
A short post today, for a short piece. First off, one thing to be clear about is this is not Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Soundwalk. This is Newcastle, Northern Ireland, UK, at the foot of the enchanting Mourne Mountains. It’s quite a charming little seaside town. Not too posh, not too shabby. Maybe...
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Maple Pass Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Maple Pass is a mountain pass loop trail in North Cascades National Park. It’s 6.8 miles, rated hard, and scores a 4.9/5 on alltrails.com. It’s about as good as it gets, really. I went there with my son a year…
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Wildwood Trail Soundwalk
It’s funny how arrivals can turn into quiet affairs. Like, say, you’re walking along a trail with a friend and you get to a view or a waterfall or something and then slip into quiet. That’s how I’m feeling with this arrival. It is the arrival of my first LP, and the sound recording it contains,...
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Cascade Pass Rain
It was supposed to be the highlight of our trip. I spent a few days with my son hiking in the North Cascades last summer. The North Cascades is, according to one YouTuber who titled his video The Most Breathtaking Hike of my Life!, the “American Alps”. It’s also one of the least visited National...
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Paris Rain
I alluded to a crop of urban soundwalk and soundscape recordings on the way a few weeks ago with Amsterdam Dawn. We’re still easing in with another Listening Spot treatment: a musical suite in conversation with a continuous environmental sound recording. This is Paris during an evening summer…
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Snow Lake Soundwalk
We are back at Tahoma / Mount Rainier this week for another soundwalk. These hikes were made in June, 2024, on a weekend father and son getaway. The recordings were edited to focus on the natural soundscape (but you can make out four feet scuffling along the trail at certain points.) I’ve always...
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Comet Falls
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Comet Falls is on the south side of Tahoma (Mount Rainier) offering a nice four mile roundtrip hike, perfect for a day when the mountain is socked-in. It’s one of the most impressive falls that I’ve hiked to,...
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Amsterdam Dawn
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com On many a post I’ve told a story about how I found a spot somewhere, that despite being within an urban area, sounded as if it might be in the deep woods. As a practical matter this tends to rely on geologic and...
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Spring Shower
Traveling around, I’ve become aware of how Pacific Northwest rain is different from rain patterns in other regions of the US. Take Texas, for example. Texas rain pours. Houses don’t have gutters there, presumably because they can’t engineer them large enough to accommodate the deluges reliably....
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Nature Trail
This is a story about a trail called Nature Trail. At the heart of the story is a simple question: What is nature for? Feel free to click play above to listen to the soundscape of Nature Trail as we ponder this question. Nature Trail was built in the 1960’s in the interior of the roughly…
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Dosewallips Soundwalk
Olympic National Park is the 8th most visited National Park in the US. About 95% of the park is roadless and designated wilderness, making it one of the most wild and undeveloped parks in the entire National Park system. Many of these most-visited parks have a significant road footprint, which...
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Mt. Tabor Rain Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com When I first heard a radio piece about Mt. Tabor Park being awarded America’s first Urban Quiet Park I have to admit I was incredulous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it, but of all the parks I visit to make...
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Coastal Forest
And so we start again. Happy New Year everyone! I picked this album to coincide with the new year because the field recording it is built on is, to me, a kind of tonic. It pulses with the sound of distant surf, wildlife, and a spring rain shower. Recorded on April 10th last year at Agnes Creek…
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Interrorem Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Hi Everyone. How are we? Are you OK? I’m OK. I’m just really grateful to be able to do this: to walk, listen, make music. To share it here. It’s a dream gig, really. So for starters today, I think we should...
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Morgan Lake
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com The view from Morgan Lake looks more like Montana than Oregon to me. It’s big sky country. Just 10 minutes up a gravel road from the eastern Oregon city of La Grande, Morgan Lake is mysteriously a world apart....
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Ice Cave
Dear Reader, In this Thanksgiving season, I just wanted to take a moment to express gratitude I’ve been feeling for three people here on Substack that I admire, and who have helped me to connect with a bunch of you. Carson Ellis Carson is a busy artist / illustrator and children’s book author…
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Natural Bridges
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com It’s a Substack exclusive! Natural Bridges was on the shorter side (11:34) so I didn’t slate it for a wide release. I hadn’t even listened to it for over four months, until a few days ago. It surprised me how…
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Ponderosa Grove
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com One thing I think you come to appreciate after some months or years of field recording, or intentional listening, is the variability of sound that conifers make when played by the wind. Where I live, I’m...
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Sleeping Animal
I hadn’t planned to write a post for Wren. In fact, just yesterday I was thinking about how I could skip even writing a Substack Note, which I had been mulling over. What to say? And then I found myself returning to the interesting thing I learned earlier in the week: how the Cherokee traditional...
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Saltzman Creek
Today’s environmental recording captures the sound of an area within Forest Park that few people gave much thought to, until a headline grabbed their attention 21 years ago. In 2004, a pair of off-trail endurance runners came across a father and daughter living in a dugout shelter in Portland’s...
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Creek & Raven
I’m sitting on a bench at the nearby city park listening to Creek & Raven. It comes out in a few days, as I write this. I haven’t listened to it for many months now, so it’s both surprising and unsurprising how it opens. Unsurprising is the trilling Pacific Wren, a distant Common Raven and the...
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Mt. Tabor Park
It’s been a little while since my last Listening Spot release. If you’re just joining, Listening Spot is a pseudonym I use for stationary environmental recordings paired to atmospheric “ambient” compositions. Once again, however, I’m breaking with the tradition of avoiding piano with a Listening...
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Pollinator Corridor
I like to work in batches. Pollinator Corridor can be filed under two batches: 1) Forest Park and 2) plein air soundwalks. So Forest Park is self explanatory, but could use some contextualizing, which I’ll get into shortly. The plein air soundwalks batch is still taking shape. Basically it’s just...
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Ecola Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com When it comes to soundwalks, it’s unusual for me to let two years go by from the time of capturing audio until release. I had to leave this one alone for a while and come back to it with fresh ears. Dear reader,...
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Meadow Showers
After a few weeks, I’m back, and excited to share something new. Out today is Meadow Showers, an album offering a new twist on the soundwalk form that has given shape to my work over the last three years. The twist is admittedly a gentle one: In a nutshell, it’s simply less footsteps in the mix.…
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Sunset Bay Soundwalk
I recorded the environmental sound for Sunset Bay Soundwalk about year ago while meandering over the rocky tidal landscape on a mild summer Sunday morning at Sunset Bay, near the city of Coos Bay, Oregon. Sunset Bay has a crescent-shaped beach, sheltered by the North Pacific waves. Here, little...
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Stream
Out today under my instrumental Sleeping Animal pseudonym is a composition entitled Stream. It’s a measured and minimal eleven minute miniature suite for electric piano and synthesizers. Look for Stream today, July 25, 2025 on all streaming services. I’m over half way through the release schedule...
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Quiet Columbia Suite
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com The Columbia River basin is roughly the size of France. The Columbia is the fourth-largest river in the United States by flow, and the largest river emptying into the eastern Pacific Ocean. In the last 90 years,...
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Oak Island Rain Soundwalk
The environmental recording for Oak Island Rain Soundwalk was recorded April 30th 2024. It’s a really gentle soundscape; dewy and hushed. I chose this photo for the cover because, if you look closely, it captures the fine rain drops that fell that morning. It’s hard to take a picture of rain. I…
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Forest Spring Suite
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com More than once in recent conversations I’ve revealed I’m not all that fond of Summer. The response has been interesting: incredulous laughter; a bemused disbelief. Why? Explain, they seemed to say. Maybe you...
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Crane Lake Soundwalk
I’ve been doing soundwalks for three years now, but it feels like longer. Crane Lake Soundwalk is officially #64. I remember the day my dad told me he listened to The Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” on the morning of his 64th birthday. He expressed a certain disbelief that he caught up to the song...
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Forest Melody Suite
This is who we hear at the top of our soundwalk: The Black-headed Grosbeak. They say it sounds like an operatic American Robin. I can’t say I disagree. Its phrases rise and fall with ebullient fluidity. This week we are back in Forest Park, in my hometown, Portland, Oregon. It’s the subject of a...
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On Creative Work
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Renewal Sometimes my brain wakes up before my body wants to these days. And sometimes, when this occurs, I reach for my earbuds to feed my brain a gentle signal while my body transitions from asleep to awake. A...
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Ancient Forest Suite
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com I’ve been doing a lot of writing about Forest Park, here in Portland, Oregon, so I decided not to double up this week. In fact, I’m putting a pause on the Wildwood Trail Sound & Vision series, to pick it back up...
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Redwood Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com This soundwalk concludes a short series from the Redwood Coast of Northern California, including the Substack-only Fern Canyon Soundwalk, as well as Grove of the Titans Soundwalk and Preston Island Soundwalk....
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Decay
Decay is a natural process. It breaks down structures so that new ones can form. Decay is also the attenuation of a sound over time. Bearing this in mind, it is also the name of a new work I’m pleased to share with you, from my strictly instrumental project, Sleeping Animal. Here I step away from...
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Forest Park Rain Suite II
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com And we’re back! More spring rain; more Pacific Wren and Wilson’s Warbler duets … It’s Forest Park Rain Suite II. And now you might be thinking why split it up? Honestly I don’t entirely remember my reasoning…
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Forest Park Rain Suite I
The environmental recording for Forest Park Rain suite was recorded about a year ago on the quiet northern side of Forest Park, here in Portland Oregon. It was a rainy day interspersed with sun breaks. Many migratory birds had buy then taken up residence here. Among them, Black-headed Grosbeak,...
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Fern Canyon Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Fern Canyon is enchanting. My whole raison d’être with soundwalks is to bottle up that feeling. Enchantment. Fascination. Magnetism. These are the robust feelings that pictures and sounds alone often can’t quite...
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Woods
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Hello. Just wanted to let you know about my new 8 minute piece in 10 movements, Woods. A few weeks ago I released a similar instrumental work entitled Coots, mentioning it was the first in a series released…
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Malheur Suite II
Last week I alluded to Malheur—a French word which translates as “misfortune”—having a kind of name-place irony, back in 2016. It was national news. Maybe you recall? But, before I go further I want to take a moment to say that telling this story makes me a bit uncomfortable. On the surface it…
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Malheur Suite I
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com Malheur means “misfortune”. It comes from French-Canadian trappers who applied the name to the SE Oregon area, when in 1818, a cache of beaver furs was believed to be stolen by local indigenous people. Malheur...
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Grove of the Titans Soundwalk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com For our next series we are going to be exploring various locations in Redwoods National & State Parks. First up, Grove of the Titans! The interesting thing about this grove is that it’s not on the official…
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Coots
This post originally introduced the pseudonym Crou, which I quickly abandoned, given the name already had multiple artist profiles on streaming services, and I realized a lot of people rely on voice commands to play music in the car and at home. “Crou” made that difficult. My usual approach…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Soundwalk combines roving field recordings with an original musical score. Each episode introduces you to a sound-rich environment, and embarks on an immersive listening journey.
chadcrouch.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Chad Crouch
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Soundwalk have?
Soundwalk currently has 129 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Soundwalk about?
Soundwalk combines roving field recordings with an original musical score. Each episode introduces you to a sound-rich environment, and embarks on an immersive listening journey. chadcrouch.substack.com
How often does Soundwalk release new episodes?
Soundwalk publishes regularly with 129 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Soundwalk?
You can listen to Soundwalk on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Soundwalk?
Soundwalk is created and hosted by Chad Crouch.
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